THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD, 


BY 

GEORGE    H.   BOKER. 


TU    MIIII    SOLUS    ERAS. 


PHILADELPHIA: 
J.  B.  LIPPINCOTT    &    CO. 

LONDON:   1C  SOUTHAMPTON  STREET,  STRAND. 

1882. 


Copyright,  1882,  by  GEORGE  II.  BOKEU. 


?M 


BESIDE  the  spreading  Nile  of  old, 
They  buried  with  their  worthy  dead 

A  scrolled  papyrus,  to  unfold  ft 

His  virtues  and  the  life  he  led. 

And  all  the  gods,  in  council  grave, 
Asked  nothing  but  this  written  scroll, 

As  evidence,  to  doom  or  save 
The  bearer's  arbitrated  soul. 

Grand  thought !  enlarging  on  the  view ; 

This  winnowed  record  of  the  pen 
Made  truth  a  right,  and  upward  drew 

The  moral  sympathies  of  men. 


M738283 


Man  leaned  on  man  for  judgment  just, 

The  grave  became  truth's  inner  shrine, 
'      And  every  heap  of-  mortal  dust 

"Was  reverenced  as  a  thing  divine. 

So  1  within  thy  hallowed  tomb 

Enclose  this  book,  most  loved  of  men  ! 

There,  till  the  dreadful  day  of  doom, 
May  it  repose,  but  open  then ! 

Book  of  the  Dead,  if  any  see 

False  judgments  in  thy  earnest  page, 

Be  all  thy  gathered  sins  on  me, — 

Man's  vengeance  and  God's  juster  rage  ! 


I. 


'Tis  not  my  purpose  to  explain 

The  truths  here  dimly  set  in  view ; 

These  hieroglyphics  of  the  brain 
Are  meant  for  others  to  undo. 

I  hang  my  painted  pictures  high, 
1  paint  them  ill,  or  paint  them  well ; 

If  they  say  nothing  to  the  eye, 
Then  I  have  nothing  more  to  tell. 


r> 


Thus  much,  howe'er,  to  all  be  known : 
The  man,  of  men  most  loved  by  me, 

Raised  up  a  ruin  till  it  shone 
Before  men's  eyes  a  prodigy. 

And  all  men  praised  the  wondrous  spot, 
And  marvelled  daily  more  and  more; 

The  only  fault  was  he  forgot 

To  drive  the  vermin  from  the  door. 

7 


THE   BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 

The  knaves  who  found  safe  shelter  there, 
"Who  owed  him  more  than  they  could  pay, 

Were  eaten  up  with  envious  care 
Because  their  chief  was  more  than  they. 

But,  cowards  shrewd,  they  hid  their  thought, 
And  fetched  and  carried  at  his  nod, 

Until  his  soul  was  upward  caught 
By  the  dread,  sudden  hand  of  God. 

In  life  they  played  their  cunning  parts, 

They  lauded  everything  he  did; 
In  death  they — bold,  heroic  hearts — 

Stabbed  at  him  through  the  coffin-lid ! 

They  searched  his  mansion  through  and  through, 
With  wolfish  hate  in  every  glance; 

Of  all  they  saw  they  nothing  knew, 
And  charged  him  with  their  ignorance. 

Here  was  some  work  left  incomplete, 

There  something  showed  the  touch  of  time; 

They  could  not  fill  his  empty  seat, — 
They  made  his  very  death  a  crime. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.  9 

Then  slander  followed,  hints  of  guilt, 
The  murmur  grew  a  general  roar; 

And,  in  the  very  house  he  built, 

They  drove  his  children  from  the  door. 

Now  partly  in  my  scorn  of  wrong, 

But  chiefly  for  the  wronged  one's  love, 

I  lift  my  voice,  and  through  my  song 
I  hear  an  answer  from  above. 

If  you  who  judge,  charge  any  leaf 

With  thoughts  too  wild  or  words  too  plain, 

Then  say,  the  man  is  mad  with  grief; 

These  villains  struck  through  heart  and  brain. 


10  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


II. 


THIS  cross  between  a  curse  and  psalm 

I  utter  with  a  holy  scorn, 
I  lift  my  pierced  and  bleeding  palm, 

I  point  you  where  the  nail  has  torn. 

I  drag  to  light  a  private  grief, 

I  brandish  it  before  your  eyes ; 
Not  that  the  action  gives  relief, 

Nor  asks  to  hear  another's  sighs. 

I  checked  awhile  the  brimming  tide, 
I  held  it  backward  from  the  world; 

It  burst  at  last,  and  far  and  wide 

Flames  ran,  and  burning  stones  were  hurled, 

This  grief  of  mine  my  soul  had  stirred 

To  song,  had  never  poet  sung ; 
There  are  some  wrongs  that  will  be  heard, 

That  find  or  make  themselves  a  tongue. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD.  11 

I  move  by  some  mysterious  law, 

The  law  that  makes  the  singer  sing, 

Though  the  sharp  draught  these  miscreants  draw 
Be,  to  their  class,  a  wholesome  thing. 

The  tears  that  mingle  with  the  bane 

Are  holy,  and  in  mercy  given ; 
Let  no  man  wipe  away  their  stain  ; 

I  wish  to  show  the  marks  in  heaven. 

It  humbles  me  that  I  must  use, 

At  times,  the  shape  of  common  woes ; 

But  mourners'  robes  are  few  to  choose ; 
Like  utterance  from  like  sorrow  flows. 

Outstretched  I  hold  my  acrid  cup, 
I  ask  no  grace  from  king  or  clown  ; 

The  hardy  hand  that  takes  it  up, 
May  curse  me  when  he  sets  it  down. 


12  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


III. 

LET  him  who  dares  usurp  God's  right 
To  sit  in  judgment  on  the  dead, 

Be  sure  no  trace  of  sinful  blight 

Corrupts  his  heart  or  wrongs  his  head. 

Let  him  be  sure  that  all  is  fair 
Within  his  round  of  sin-born  clay  ; 

That  penance  long  and  fast  and  prayer 
Have  purged  his  grosser  parts  away. 

He  should  be  guilt  and  passion  free 
To  whom  this  awful  cause  is  given, 

And  like  Elijah  stand,  when  he 

Stepped  in  the  flesh  from  earth  to  heaven. 

With  humble  soul,  and  reverence  deep, 
He  should  approach  the  holy  gloom  ; 

And  lowly  kneel,  and  lowly  weep : 
Not,  like  a  vandal,  burst  the  tomb. 


THE   BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  13 

And  when  the  coffin-lid  is  raised, 

Where  lies  the  dumb,  defenceless  man, 

Let  him  remember  those  who  praised, 
And  count  his  virtues  if  he  can. 

We  judge  the  act  and  consequence, 

We  blindly  hit  the  truth  perchance; 
But  God  looks  through  this  film  of  sense; 
He  weighs  the  heart  and  circumstance. 

What  in  our  eyes  is  glaring  crime, 
In  God's  may  be  a  thing  to  bless ; 

Our  eyes  see  ill  through  space  and  time  ; 
We  cannot  know,  we  can  but  guess. 

Let  him  who  judges  have  a  fear 

Lest  hearts  be  wrung  and  eyes  made  dim, 
And  tremble  lest  an  orphan's  tear 

May  curse  his  sacrilege  and  him. 

And  when  the  final  verdict  's  made, 

Stretch  not  the  law  to  meet  the  case  ; 
Stern  Justice  lays  aside  her  blade 

When  gazing  in  a  dead  man's  face. 
2 


14  THE  BOOK  OF    THE    DEAD. 

Keeping  this  solemn  charge  at  heart. 
Draw  near  the  grave,  and  lay  it  bare ; 

Assume  your  self-appointed  part; — 
Now  judge  the  dead  man,  if  you  dare ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  15 


IV. 


I  MAKE  a  pageant  of  my  pain, 

Some  say,  throughout  my  dreary  song, 

And  mar  the  sweetness  of  my  strain 
With  dismal  groans  at  crime  and  wrong. 

It  may  be  so  :   I  can  but  sing ; 

For  thus  one  half  my  grief  is  drowned: 
The  wild  bird,  struck  beneath  the  wing, 

Recks  little  how  his  note  may  sound. 

This  cry  of  pain  invades  the  land, 
It  fills  my  ears,  it  will  not  pass ; 

Life's  brightest  and  most  golden  sand 
Runs  grating  through  the  narrow  glass. 

I  do  not  say  our  journey  goes 

Without  some  roses,  there  and  here ; 

Although  short  seasons  has  the  rose, 
The  thorns  are  growing  all  the  year. 


1G  THE  BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD. 

I  quarrel  not  with  human  mirth ; 

I  envy  not  the  man  who  steals 
His  hard- wrung  pleasures  from  the  earth, 

And  swings  the  wine-cup  till  he  reels. 

I  shall  not  enter  at  his  door 

"With  doleful  songs,  to  move  his  scorn  ; 
May  roses  crown  him  o'er  and  o'er! 

I  sing  for  him  who  feels  the  thorn. 

I  care  not  who  are  deaf,  who  hear: 
Amidst  the  people's  groan  and  shout, 

I  sing  as  nature  wrills ;   the  ear 

'Twould  hear  my  song  must  seek  it  out. 

And  if  it  be  a  moan  or  sigh, 

Unwelcome,  foolish,  as  you  deem, 

I  pray  you  pass  me  lightly  by, 

And  leave  the  dreamer  to  his  dream. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  17 


V. 


TO-DAY  my  inmost  soul  was  stirred : 
I  saw  the  crocus  from  the  ground 

Burst,  like  a  little  flame,  and  heard 

The  wandering  bluebird's  trumpet  sound, 

The  heat  of  life  is  in  the  air, 

And  recreated  Summer  swings 

& 

Her  first  faint  odors  here  and  there, 
To  lure  the  bee's  adventurous  win^s. 

O 

What  if  my  soul  should  strain  the  chain 
That  binds  her  to  this  silent  grave, 

And  long  o'er  hill  and  vale  again 
The  pinion  of  her  youth  to  wave? 

Go  forth,  O  soul,  and  take  thy  flight ! 

Dash  through  the  meadows'  fiery  bloom  ! 
I  know  thou  wilt  return  ere  nio;ht, 

t5  J 

And  sink  and  settle  in  the  tomb. 
b  2* 


18  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


VI. 


THY  grave  is  shut  against  the  lies 

Of  this  false  world.      Thou  art  at  rest, 

With  eyelids  pressed  on  sightless  eyes, 

Palms  crossed  above  thy  breathless  breast. 

The  fretful  stir  of  sense  is  gone; 

Thou  canst  not  hear  these  miscreants  roar. 
I,  passion-fraught,  I  hear  alone  — 

Alone,  and  thank  my  God  therefore ! 

Or  if  from  heaven's  far  crystal  height 

Thy  disembodied  soul  can  see, 
Earth's  gayest  or  most  solemn  sight 

May  seem  a  phantasm  to  thee. 

Our  comic  and  our  tragic  play 

To  thee  are  but  illusions  vain, 
Theatric  shows  that  pass  away 

In  smiles,  or  leave  a  pleasing  pain. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD.  19 

Majestic  Soul,  rebuke  me  not, 
If,  while  I  fill  this  narrow  stage, 

My  higher  nature  is  forgot, 

Lost  in  the  actor's  painted  rage. 

To  me  this  scene  is  all  in  all ; 

I  am  the  thing  I  seem  to  be : 
The  bell  will  ring,  the  curtain  fall, 

I  pass  into  reality. 


20  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


VII. 

IF  this  cruel  cup  of  love  and  hate 
Shall  pass  to  other  lips  than  mine, 

And  mortals,  of  an  older  date, 

Make  mouths  above  my  bitter  wine ; 

And  cry,  "  Behold,  he  gives  our  thirst 
A  sponge  of  vinegar  and  gall!" 

I  answer,  Bear  my  cross  accurst, 

And  this  fell  draught  shall  not  appall. 

Nay,  rather  merciful  and  mild, 

To  such  a  thirst,  the  draught  will  seem  ; 
For  one  with  raging  famine  wild 

Drinks  gladly  at  the  foulest  stream. 

O  solemn  line,  arrayed  in  black, 

That  shades  you  to  the  inmost  heart, 

Who  tread  the  wide  funereal  track 

On  which  earth's  fated  mourners  start! — 


THE  BOOK    OF    THE  DEAD.  21 

The  long  procession,  never  done, 

That  wearies  out  the  countless  years, 

Whose  march  is  timed  by  sob  and  groan, 
And  watered  with  perpetual  tears; — 

I  know  you  by  your  shuddering  sighs, 
Your  lips  severe,  your  figures  bent, 

And  thus,  beneath  your  downcast  eyes, 
I  spread  my  awful  sacrament! 


22  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


VIII. 

SOMETIMES  I  weary  of  my  task, 

And  cease  to  ply  my  vengeful  thong ; 

And  of  my  judgment  coldly  ask, 
Are  these  dull  cattle  worth  a  song? 

Shall  I  preserve  in  studied  rhyme 
Each  ignominious  villain's  name, 

And  give  him,  in  the  after-time, 
An  immortality  of  shame? 

Shall  they,  hung  on  the  sweeping  skirts 
Of  coming  years,  drag  out  their  doom, 

While  men  of  shy  but  pure  deserts 
Are  mouldering  in  a  nameless  tomb  ? 

I  half  repent  my  own  device: 

Like  ancient  Egypt's  erring  priests, 

I  waste  my  precious  oil  and  spice, 
Embalming  coarse  and  vulgar  beasts. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  23 

Sure  even  in  these  slow,  drudging  days, 

Are  men  whose  hearts  and  deeds  are  bright, 

Who  well  deserve  a  poet's  lays : 

Thus  struck,  I  turn  to  heaven  for  light. 

But  as  to  God's  eternal  blue, 

I  lift  my  love-devoted  head, 
From  inner  depths  come  gliding  through 

The  stern,  cold  features  of  the  dead. 

I  bow,  I  weep ;   I  cannot  choose  ; 

In  vain  imploring  pity  cries ; 
In  vain  I  falter  or  refuse 

Beneath  the  mandate  of  those  eyes. 

Once  more  the  scourge  in  fury  beats, 
The  writhing  culprits  feel  their  fate, 

And  love,  unconquerable,  completes 
The  intermitted  task  of  hate. 


24  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


IX. 

I  HEAR  the  clarions  of  the  day, 

Night's  misty  veil  is  upward  drawn, 

And  with  its  golden  fringes  play 
The  jewelled  fingers  of  the  dawn. 

The  curling  vapors,  one  by  one, 
Are  shot  with  opalescent  gleams, 

And,  now,  the  almost  risen  sun 

Darts  up  a  thousand  crimson  streams. 

From  heaven  to  earth  the  splendor  steals, 
Down  gilded  vanes  to  windowed  towers 

The  conscious  bells  break  out  in  peals, — 
God !    what  a  wondrous  world  is  ours ! 

The  fiery  colors  slowly  fade, 

In  sapphire  depths  they  pass  away ; 

The  sun  begins  his  grand  parade, 
From  pole  to  pole  'tis  perfect  day. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  25 

Earth's  children  feel  their  mother  warm, 
From  drowsy  beds  they  wake  and  start, 

And  forth,  through  streets  and  alleys,  swarm 
In  myriads  to  the  noisy  mart. 

Oh  !   happy  toil !     Oh  !   blessed  fate  ! 

To  no  one  thought  too  close  confined, 
That,  with  each  motion,  drops  a  date, 

And  shifts  the  pictures  of  the  mind. 

I  envy  you  your  changing  strife, 

Your  weary  hours,  your  evening  rest, 

When  all  the  little  cares  of  life 

Are  lulled  to  slumber  in  the  breast: 

For  my  poor  soul,  that  still  will  float 

Near  one  idea  of  stern  device, 
Drifts  on,  like  the  Laplander's  boat, 

Close  moored  beside  its  berg  of  ice. 


26  THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 


X. 


IF  passion  less,  and  reason  more, 

My  wayward  nature  checked  and  led, 

If  some  great  change  of  empire  bore 
The  seat  of  rule  from  heart  to  head; 

If,  with  the  dullards,  I  inclined 

To  count  my  gold,  and  drop  to  clay, 

And  leave  the  fingered  stuff  behind, 
To  witness  me  to  such  as  they; 

If  I  could  trim  my  muse's  wing, 
Control  her  flight,  abate  her  rage, 

And  teach  her,  a  well-ordered  thing, 
To  coo  and  warble  in  a  cage; 

If  I  could  school  my  face  to  show 
A  visored  hate,  a  vapid  love, 

And  range  my  feelings  in  a  row, 
For  any  fool  at  will  to  move; 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  27 

If  I  could  lie  and  feign,  to  draw 

My  simple  neighbor  in  a  trap, 
Just  on  the  outskirts  of  the  law, 

Securely  sheltered  from  mishap; 

If  that,  to  which  all  hearts  are  sold, 
Could  be  the  god  on  which  I  call, — 

That  greasy  harlot,  common  gold, 
The  temptress  of  man's  second  fall; 

If  in  my  soul  the  Lord  were  dead, 
And  conscience  dumb  and  pitiless, 

And  Aaron's  golden  calf  instead 
Stared  o'er  the  moral  wilderness; 

Why,  then,  this  servile  world  would  praise 
The  very  ground  on  which  I  stood, 

And  the  base  scoundrels  of  these-  lays 
Would  hail  me  of  their  brotherhood. 


28  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 


XL 


PETER  and  Judas  merged  in  one! 

Two  traitors,  matchless  till  thy  time, 
It  needs  to  show  the  deed  thou  hast  done, 

And  fill  the  measure  of  thy  crime. 

Him  thou  deniedst,  and  sold  to  men, 

Was  more  to  thee  than  aught  on  earth  ; 

He  raised  thy  narrow  fortunes  when 
The  world  was  cold  before  thy  worth. 

Change  places  with  that  noble  heart; 

If  thou  wert  dead  and  wronged,  would  he, 
I  ask  thee,  act  so  vile  a  part 

In  dealing  with  thy  memory? 

Oh,  fie !    conceal  thy  dirty  gold, 
Thy  secret  comfort,  open  shame ! 

For  thirty  pieces  thou  hast  sold 
The  treasure  of  an  honest  name. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  29 

Or  else  let  Judas'  story  yield 

Its  fullest  fruit :   Take  up  thy  pelf, 

Seek  out  the  Potter,  buy  his  field, 
And  in  some  corner  hang  thyself! 


30  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XII. 

WHILE  this  shall  stand,  the  wicked  deeds 
Of  these  base  men  shall  never  die: 

A  thousand  years  the  wheatcn  seeds 
Within  the  mummy's  palms  may  lie ; — 

A  thousand  years,  and  once  again 
A  light  breaks  in  upon  the  tomb, 

And  from  those  dusty  hands  the  grain 
Is  sown,  o'er  harvest-fields  to  bloom. 

And  so  may  sleep  my  angry  rhymes, 
And  you  may  say,  "The  fellow  raves!" 

I  smile :    these  lines,  in  after-times, 

Shall  drag  you  naked  from  your  graves. 

And  save  the  record  I  have  made, 
Your  lives  shall  have  no  history, 

And  that  shall  cast  a  baleful  shade 
Upon  your  shameful  progeny. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  31 


XIII. 

THE  regicides  who  slew  King  Charles, 
And  won  the  realm,  and  bore  the  sway, 

Were,  like  yourselves,  but  vulgar  carls, 
Yet,  like  yourselves,  they  had  their  day. 

For  years  they  held  the  kingdom  fast, 
And  all  their  future  days  looked  fair ; 

And  when  from  earth  they  grandly  passed, 
They  left  it  to  their  children's  care. 

But  time  set  all  their  wrongs  to  rights  ; 

When  prone  lay  every  Eoundhead  cur, 
Their  fathers'  skulls  were  ghastly  sights, 

All  grinning  over  Westminster. 


32  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XIV. 

I  HAD  a  vision  of  the  night, 
A  presage  of  the  day  of  doom, 

When  all  the  wrongs  shall  come  to  light 
That  slumber  in  the  darkened  tomb, 

I  saw  the  court  of  heaven  unclose, 
The  risen  sinners  sadly  meet ; 

Our  good,  our  ill,  our  joys,  our  woes, 
Stood  naked  at  the  judgment-seat. 

My  culprits  found  a  foremost  place. 

I  gazed  on  them :    I  bore  no  grudge 
Before  his  stern,  accusing  face, 

I  witness,  and  our  God  the  judge. 

I  gazed  on  them,  I  gazed  around ; 

No  passion  held  me  in  control ; 
The  sense  of  awe  was  so  profound, 

So  deep  the  clearness  of  the  soul ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  33 

The  knave  by  whom  the  band  was  led, 
His  scarlet  face  was  pallid  grown, 

The  crimson  hair  upon  his  head 
Eose  up,  as  if  it  were  his  own. 

Some  showed  a  guilty,  downcast  look, 
And  some  their  aching  vision  screened 

From  the  terrific  light  that  shook 
These  twelve  apostles  of  the  fiend. 

And  he  who  had  betrayed  the  dead, 
When  those  cold  eyes  upon  him  fell, 

To  shun  that  glance,  ere  aught  was  said, 
Slunk  downward  into  endless  hell. 

The  cause  was  judged,  the  verdict  given, 
So  plain  that  every  soul  might  hear; 

And  the  great  truth  was  blown  through  heaven, 
From  golden  clarions,  far  and  near. 

Now  let  men  judge,  as  men  think  right, 

They  only  see  as  men  may  see : 
I  had  a  vision  of  the  night, 

By  gracious  God  'twas  sent  to  me. 


34  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XV. 

THE  moon  sails  up  the  mottled  sky, 

Half  hidden  in  a  fleecy  shroud, 
And  from  the  east,  with  sword  on  high, 

Orion  plunges  through  the  cloud. 

The  west  is  clear.      One  solemn  star 

Looks  at  its  image  in  the  wave: 
The  star  seems  very  sad  and  far; 

It  bends  above  my  loved  one's  grave. 

Was  that  a  rushing  of  the  wind, 
A  noise  of  beasts,  a  shriek  for  aid, 

Or  cry  of  vampires,  fury-blind, 

That  hunger  where  my  dead  is  laid  ? 

Forth  through  the  moonlight,  towards  the  glow 
Of  yon  lone  star,  I  take  my  way ; 

And  at  thy  hillock  bending  low, 
I  sing  to  thee  a  tender  lay. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  35 

The  vampires'  howl  was  fierce  and  high ; 

It  sinks  to  silence,  and  they  flit 
Back  to  their  noisome  dens,  while  I 

Make  a  faint  music  where  I  sit. 


36  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XVI. 

WHEN  the  dead  Cid  was  laid  in  state, 
His  body  armed,  his  trophies  near, 

A  caitiff  Jew,  inflamed  with  hate, 

Stole  through  the  chancel  to  the  bier. 

Amid  the  candle-light  he  stood, 
And  peered  into  the  warrior's  face, 

To  curse,  in  his  vindictive  mood, 
That  stern  despiser  of  his  race. 

His  fury  kindled  as  he  cursed, 

He  scorned  the  dead,  he  grinned,  he  jeered ; 
His  courage  rose,  he  did  his  worst, 

He  plucked  the  hero  by  the  beard. 

The  pale  face  flushed,  and  instant  rang 
A  clamor  through  the  startled  night; 

With  sword  half  drawn,  the  corpse  upsprang ; 
The  Hebrew  fled  in  mad  affright. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  37 

If  thou,  poor  corpse,  that  'mid  this  band 
Of  slanderous  churls  so  still  dost  lie, 

Couldst  move  one  finger  of  thy  hand, 
How  would  these  Jews  in  terror  fly  ! 


38  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


xvn. 

IP  yon  cold  lizard,  sliming  o'er 
The  sacred  tablet  of  the  dead, 

Had  been  half  human  at  the  core, 

These  bitter  tears  had  ne'er  been  shed. 

Had  he  possessed  a  common  soul, 
A  faith  in  God,  a  heart,  a  brain, 

I  ne'er  had  penned  this  dreadful  scroll, 
And  my  bruised  heart  might  heal  again. 

Had  he  but  shown  a  decent  sense 
Of  what  is  due  the  giver's  hand, 

But  paid  for  gold  with  copper  pence, 
This  shame  had  vanished  from  the  land. 

I  little  hoped  from  thee;   in  fact, 

I  knew  how  thin  thy  cold  blood  ran  ; 

I  only  thought  to  see  thee  act, 
Not  as  a  hero,  as  a  man. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  39 


XVIII. 

FALSE  Pilate  washed  his  guilty  hands 
Before  the  congregated  Jews, 

And  said,  "  Behold,  this  just  man  stands 
Acquitted  ;    why  is  he  accused  ?" 

But  when  they  cried  more  eagerly, 
Appalled  the  trembling  coward  stood ; 

And  said,  "  Bear  witness,  I  am  free ! 
Upon  you  be  his  guiltless  blood !" 

'Twas  Pilate's  part  to  bind  or  loose; 

To  yield  his  functions,  at  the  stir 
Of  threatening  tongues,  was  vain  excuse, 

And  Pilate  was  a  murderer. 


40  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XIX. 

OFT  when  thy  duties  bound  thee  down 

To  wearying  labor,  I,  more  free, 
Fled  from  the  stagnant  heat  of  town, 

And  sought  to  lure  thee  after  me. 

In  vain  I  tried  the  oriole's  call, 

In  vain  the  robin's  tender  note, 
In  vain  the  woodland  songsters  all 

Made  music  in  my  swelling  throat. 

In  vain  I  shook  the  morning  spray 

From  blossom-boughs,  or  round  thee  blew 

The  odor  of  the  new-mown  hay 

From  hill-sides  steaming  with  the  dew. 

Or  painted  nature's  sterner  moods, — 
The  flashing  cloud,  the  driving  rain, 

When  through  the  slant  and  groaning  woods 
Eoars  the  terrific  hurricane. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  41 

Or  to  the  mountains  bare  and  bleak, 

Through  gulfs,  through  crags,  o'er  ledges  clornb, 
And  showed  how  from  the  cloven  peak 

The  streams  plunge  out  in  clouds  of  foam. 

Or  lightly  touched  on  pastoral  joys, — 

The  woolly  flock,  the  grazing  kine ; 
What  simple  things  are  Damon's  toys, 

How  Chloe's  milky  buckets  shine! 

Or  with  the  ocean's  moaning,  cry, 

Bewailed  thy  absence  from  afar; 
Or  mounting  to  the  darkening  sky, 

Gazed  at  thee  from  the  evening  star. 

In  vain  I  pled  with  all  my  art ;  « 

I  had  no  power  to  move  thee  then ; 

Thy  joys  were  in  the  human  heart, 
Amidst  the  press  and  throng  of  men. 

I  pointed  to  the  o'erworked  dust 

That  swells  the  church-yard  mounds:   you  said, 
"  'Twcre  better  to  wear  out  than  rust: 

There  is  rest. enough  amongst  the  dead." 
4* 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 

Poor  soul,  I  mourn  thy  labor  lost ; 

Thy  self-denying  purpose  gained, 
But  gained  at  a  prodigious  cost, — 

Thy  work  denied,  thy  memory  stained. 

I  may  misjudge.     Thy  life  to  thee, 
Perhaps,  was  filled  with  joyous  hours, 

And  seemed  as  fair  an  empery 

As  that  o'er  which  the  poet  towers. 

'Tis  for  omniscient  God  alone 

To  know  who  grovels,  who  ascends : 

We  work  His  purpose,  one  by  one, 
In  divers  ways,  to  divers  ends. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  43 


THE  chain  that  binds  me  to  this  oar 
Is  galling  to  my  sentient  soul ; 

My  spirits,  fretted  sick  and  sore, 
In  endless  anguish  toss  and  roll. 

The  face  of  heaven  is  hard  and  black, 
Gaunt  nature  scorns  my  human  woe, 

The  tardy  arm  of  God  is  slack, 
And  hell  a  far-off,  painted  show. 

God's  ear  is  deaf  to  wrong  or  right ; 

In  vain  my  ceaseless  prayer  I  pour, 
Through  painful  day  and  troubled  night, 

For  simple  justice,  nothing  more. 

They  bask  and  fatten  in  the  sun, 

These  schemers,  and  they  grin  with  mirth 

At  every  cunning  wrong  they  have  done 
To  truth,  to  right,  to  buried  worth. 


44  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

I  read  of  grand  old  Hebrew  days, 
"When  God  judged  earth,  and  I  but  see, 

In  all  that  scribe  or  prophet  says, 
The  wreck  of  dead  mythology. 

This  world  of  ours,  this  modern  world, 
That  seeks  no  heaven,  and  shuns  no  hell, 

By  art  and  science  forward  hurled, 
Gets  on  without  a  God  as  well. 

So  sick  at  heart,  in  angry  mood, 

I  throw  my  bitter  pen  aside, 
And  cry,  "  Why  care  for  ill  or  good, 

Or  any  end  that  may  betide? 

"  I'll  live  my  life,  I'll  branch  and  bloom, 
I'll  kill  the  conscience  in  my  breast: 

So  from  this  dreadful  work  of  doom 
My  hand  shall  have  eternal  rest !" 

I  hear  the  swift  descending  rush 
Of  angel  wings,  the  hovering  play, 

The  rustle,  and  the  awful  hush 
That  follows,  as  they  fold  away. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  45 

I  know  who  stands  beside  my  chair, 
Who  sternly  motions  to  my  pen; 

I  grasp  it,  in  foredoomed  despair, 
And  ply  my  fearful  task  again. 

Once  more  the  pinions  are  unfurled, 
They  beat  the  air,  they  mount  on  high, 

And  from  this  low,  sin-bounded  world, 
Go  fanning  gently  up  the  sky. 


46  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXI. 

FOR  gold  you  did  your  treacherous  deed, 
Mere  money  was  your  aim  and  end; 

To  selfish  lust  you  gave  good  heed, 

And  turned  against  your  helpless  friend. 

The  only  chance  fate  e'er  bestowed, 
Where  power  was  given  you  to  repay, 

In  scanty  weight,  the  debt  you  owed, 
Your  craft  used  only  to  betray. 

The  vilest  baseness  of  your  kind — 
The  miser's  greed,  the  coward's  fear — 

I  grant  your  nature,  yet  I  find 

Nowhere  in  human  kind  your  peer. 

Since  the  world's  history  began, 
No  record  stands  of  one  who  sold 

So  broadly,  in  the  face  of  man, 
His  buried  friend  for  dirty  gold. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD.  47 

Poor  Judas,  for  bis  thirty  pence, 

A  living  victim  dared  to  sell ; 
And  when  he  saw  the  consequence, 

Fell  riven  with  the  pangs  of  hell. 

But  to  the  treachery  of  the  Jew 
You  join  the  dastard,  and  instead 

Of  bartering  with  your  sordid  crew 
For  one  alive,  you  sell  the  dead. 

Is  gold  to  conscience  bolt  and  bar, 
Against  all  entrance  sound  and  firm? 

I  fear  it  cannot  heal  the  scar 

Gnawed  through  by  the  undying  worm. 

No  man  will  envy  you  your  prize ; 

I  hold  the  treasure  dearly  bought ; 
I  only  see  before  your  eyes 

A  bag  of  gold,  a  hell  of  thought. 


48  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXII. 

I  STAND  beside  the  sea  once  more, 
Its  measured  murmur  comes  to  me ; 

The  breeze  is  low  upon  the  shore, 
And  low  upon  the  purple  sea. 

Across  the  bay  the  flat  sand  sweeps, 

•    To  where  the  helmed  light-house  stands 

Upon  its  post,  and  vigil  keeps, 

Far  seaward  marshalling  all  the  lands. 

The  hollow  surges  rise  and  fall, 
The  ships  steal  up  the  quiet  bay; 

I  scarcely  hear  or  see  at  all, 

My  thoughts  are  flown  so  far  away. 

They  follow  on  yon  sea-bird's  track, 
Beyond  the  beacon's  crystal  dome ; 

They  will  not  falter,  nor  come  back, 
Until  they  find  my  darkened  home. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD.  49 

Ah !    woe  is  me !    'tis  scarce  a  year 
Since,  gazing  o'er  this  moaning  main, 

My  thoughts  flew  home  without  a  fear, 
And  with  content  returned  again. 

To-day,  alas !    the  fancies  dark, 

That  from  my  laden  bosom  flew, 
Returning,  came  into  the  ark, 

Not  with  the  olive,  with  the  yew. 

The  ships  draw  slowly  towards  the  strand, 
The  watchers'  hearts  with  hope  beat  high  ; — 

But  ne'er  again  wilt  thou  touch  land, 
Lost,  lost  in  yonder  sapphire  sky ! 


50  THE   BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXIII, 

THE  noblest  heart  1  ever  knew 

Died  when  thine  ceased  to  rise  and  fo 

My  loves,  indeed,  are  shy  and  few  ; 
My  love  for  thee  was  crown  of  all. 

I  loved  thee  for  thy  honest  scorn 

Of  fraud  and  wrong,  thy  tender  ruth, 

That  touched  the  lowest  thing  forlorn, 
Thy  eagle  grasp  on  right  and  truth. 

I  never  knew  thy  tongue  to  hang, 
Before  rich  wrong,  in  selfish  fright; 

But  I  have  heard  it  when  it  rang, 
A  clarion,  on  the  side  of  right. 

The  clearness  of  thy  mental  view 
Embraced  all  objects  that  it  sought, 

And  pierced  the  darkest  avenue 
Of  high  and  speculative  thought. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  51 

It  wisely  taught  the  proud  and  rich, 
It  roused  the  poor  man's  humble  fire, 

And  sometimes  even  struck  the  pitch, 
To  tune  my  false  and  jarring  lyre. 

Where'er  it  fell,  a  ray  was  shed, 

Some  truth  revealed,  some  reason  found ; 

Like  a  revolving  light,  it  spread 

The  whole  horizon  round  and  round. 

We  children  laud  the  hero's  prize, 

The  outward  Christian's  patent  worth ; 

Forgetting  that  true  goodness  flies 
Above  the  plaudits  of  this  earth. 

The  dreadful  victory  of  the  field 

'Twixt  soul  and  self  is  never  known ; 

Nor  know  we  of  the  man  who  kneeled, 
In  secret  prayer,  to  God  alone. 

This  struggle  and  this  faith  were  thine; 

By  man  no  victor's  crown  was  given  ; 
But  even  now  a  light  may  shine 

Around  thy  brows  in  highest  heaven. 


52  THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 


XXIV. 

AT  times  the  patience  of  my  soul 
With  sudden  rage  is  overflown  ; 

I  sparkle  like  an  angry  coal 

At  which  a  furious  breath  is  blown. 

In  wrath  my  frenzied  numbers  roar, 
A  brandished  sword  in  every  verse; 

And  thus  upon  my  foes  I  pour 
The  flames  of  my  prophetic  curse. 

May  you,  who  so  for  money  yearn, 
From  thirst  for  gold  be  ne'er  exempt ; 

And  may  each  several  coin  you  earn, 
Earn  for  you  a  distinct  contempt! 

May  every  virtue  you  can  claim 
Be  traded  off,  be  priced  and  sold, 

And  made  an  offering  of  shame 
Before  your  loathsome  idol,  gold ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  53 

The  miser's  lust,  the  miser's  fear, 

Possess  you,  soul  and  heart  and  mind, 

Make  you  suspect  love's  holiest  tear, 
And  shut  your  door  against  your  kind ! 

May  money  be  your  all  in  all, 

Your  only  gain,  your  only  power, 
The  god  on  which  your  terrors  call 

For  comfort  in  your  dying  hour ! 

And,  at  that  hour,  may  money  dole 

Such  comfort  as  it  has  in  store; 
As  on  your  lonely  beds  you  roll, 

May  your  hands  clutch  abroad  for  more ! 

So  dying,  in  your  coffins  rot ! — 

The  plough  pass  o'er  your  nameless  graves! — 
Your  gold  be  as  the  heavy  shot 

That  sinks  the  sailor  in  the  waves  ! 


54  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXV. 

WITH  passion  yet  my  nature  quakes ; 

I  quiver  to  the  inmost  soul, 
Like  an  alarming  bell  that  shakes 

After  its  tongue  has  ceased  to  toll. 

After  the  bell  has  ceased  to  beat, 
What  follows  on  the  deafening  din  ? 

Good  Christian  people  calmly  meet, 
And  solemn  services  begin. 

So  I,  by  stormy  passion  riven, 
Eestrain  my  rage,  devoutly  bow, 

And  turn  my  asking  face  to  heaven, 
But  find  a  darkness  on  God's  brow. 

I  know  I  strode  a  step  too  far; 

I  reached  with  my  audacious  hand, 
Above  the  privilege  of  my  star, 

And  caught  at  God's  avenging  brand. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  55 

I  drop  my  head  and  pardon  ask : 

This  mandate  sternly  comes  from  Thee : 

"  O  Poet,  do  thy  human  task, 

And  leave  the  end  of  things  to  Me!" 


56  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXVI. 

I  KNOW  the  men  of  after-time 

With  this  fierce  record  will  be  vexed ; 
The  comments  on  my  culprits'  crime 

Will  far  outweigh  the  author's  text. 

I  know  howe'er  that,  now  and  then, 
Some  light  will  fall  on  what  is  said  ; 

Some  name  be  branded  with  the  pen, 
Some  trespass  find  its  proper  head. 

Their  catalogue,  with  date  and  name 
And  due  descent,  shall  surely  last ; 

As  how  their  race  from  nothing  came, 
And  into  worse  than  nothing  passed. 

Dead,  damned,  forgotten,  save  for  me, 
This  rubbish,  that  I  choose  to  save, 

Shall  surge  into  eternity, 

The  scum  and  outcast  of  the  wave. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  57 

For  them  the  foot  of  Time  shall  stand, 
His  scythe  hang  idly,  and  his  glass 

Itefuse  to  turn  its  blinding  sand; — 

They  shall  not  hide  beneath  the  grass. 

The  men,  themselves,  to  me  are  naught ; 

Their  crime,  not  them,  is  what  I  hate ; 
For  as  these  fatal  lines  are  wrought, 

I  rather  sorrow  at  their  fate. 

If  my  poor  word  were  future  law, 
I  fain  would  give  their  names  relief, — 

Make  them  mere  men  of  rags  and  straw. 
Mere  scarecrows  to  their  brother  thief. 

But  men  will  delve  in  olden  dates  ; 

1  know  the  weight  of  what  I  do ; 
And  how  the  scourges  of  the  Fates 

Will  drive  the  rogues  in  open  view. 

My  verdict  shall  not  be  reversed : 

To  me  and  mine  no  ruth  they  show  : 

They  do  their  worst,  I  do  my  worst ; 
But -mine  will  be  a  lasting  blow. 


58  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


xxvir. 

TO-DAY  should  be  a  golden  one  : 

Within  my  calendar  it  stands 
As  that  whereon  love's  chains  were  run 

Around  my  outstretched  willing  hands. 

O  dearest,  on  your  candid  brow 
I  lay  my  kisses,  but  you  start : 

You  see  a  cloud  upon  me  now, 
You  know  a  trouble  in  my  heart. 

Not  thus  our  mated  days  began : 
That  morn  my  kisses  warmly  fell; 

For  shouting  Joy  before  us  ran, 

And  laughed,  and  shook  his  merry  bell. 

From  end  to  end  the  world  was  bright, 
The  heavens  with  glory  overflown  ; 

And  when  the  stars  came  out  at  night, 
Their  size  and  light  had  strangely  grown. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  50 

I  drew  a  picture  of  our  days, 

What  care  might  come,  what  mirth  beguile ; 
A  life  that  led  through  studious  ways, 

Yet  brightened  by  the  Muses'  smile. 

We  two  have  kept  my  picture  true, 
And  daily  more  and  more  it  shone, 

Till  other  fingers  laid  a  hue 
Upon  it,  and  it  sank  in  tone. 

Still  hail  with  me  our  bridal  morn, 

And  spread  the  feast,  and  bring  the  wine : 

Against  this  year  of  days  forlorn 
It  makes  a  little  circle  shine. 


GO  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXVIII. 

OF  old  Amilcar  called  his  son 

Before  the  gods,  and  made  him  swear, 

While  swords  could  strike  or  blood  could  run, 
Unending  hate  towards  Rome  to  bear. 

So  thou,  my  son,  with  lifted  hand, 

As  solemnly  avow  to  me, 
Against  this  sacrilegious  band, 

Perpetual  strife  and  enmity. 

My  latter  days  small  joy  impart : 
Death  comes  in  sadness,  not  in  fear ; 

I  feel  his  touch  upon  my  heart, 
I  hear  his  footstep  in  my  ear. 

Half-way  I'll  step  my  guest  to  greet, 
I'll  face  the  shadow  at  my  gate, 

With,  Welcome,  friend  !    at  last  we  meet : 
Receive  my  hand :    thou  hast  tarried  late ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  61 

But  if  I  leave  my  work  undone, 

My  scroll  of  vengeance  scant  and  strait, 

To  thy  young  hand,  my  only  son, 
The  fearful  task  I  dedicate. 

By  night  or  day,  through  foul  or  fair, 

Pursue  this  purpose  to  its  end  : 
God  grant  the  sacred  gift  I  bear, 

Thrice  magnified,  on  thee  descend ! 

Scourge  wrong  and  fraud,  scourge  fool  and  knave, 
Nor  care  what  tears  or  blood  you  draw ; 

Train  your  young  sinews  till  you  have 
The  panther's  tread,  the  lion's  paw ! 

Tell  liars  that  they  lie;  and  tell 

The  high-set  scoundrel  that  his  pelf 

Was  minted  in  the  fires  of  hell, 

And  there  shall  perish  with  himself! 

Kemember,  that  the  holiest  name, 

Earth  knows,  was  merciless  to  wrong : 
He  reddened  once  with  righteous  sham  >, 

And  in  the  Temple  used  the  thong. 
6 


62  THE   BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 

Men's  lips  shall  follow  thee  with  groans; 

Perhaps  thou'lt  win  a  martyr's  crown ; 
But  shout,  like  Stephen,  blind  with  stones, 

Like  Peter,  hanging  visage  down ! 

The  boldly  good  are  martyrs  yet : 
Who  dares  to  scorn  this  sinful  world, 

Shall  find  his  cross  is  ready  set, 

And  stones  are  gathered  to  be  hurled. 

Christ's  mantle  will  not  stretch  and  flow, 
Its  scanty  freedom  binds  and  irks, 

Man  wears  it  in  the  church  for  show, 
But  strips  it  off  to  do  his  works. 

Be  thou  a  Christian  more  sincere, 
Be  just  and  true,  be  wise  and  bold  ; 

Nor  shame  thy  Master  for  a  sneer, 
Nor  sell  Him  for  a  bag  of  gold ! 

Be  thou  a  soldier  of  the  Lord, 

Armed  with  the  sword,  the  cross,  the  lyre 
Press  onward  through  the  pagan  horde, 

Nor  fear,  nor  pause,  nor  turn,  nor  tire! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  63 

True  poets  are  true  prophets,  sent 

To  scatter  fear  through  wicked  lands; — 

Take  thy  commission  by  descent, 

With  prayer,  and  laying  on  of  hands ! 


64  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXIX. 

LET  him  who  in  my  footsteps  treads 
Be  patient  till  the  march  is  o'er, 

Nor  ask  why  'round  these  brainless  heads 
I  swing  the  hammer  of  old  Thor. 

It  is  the  stigma  of  our  land 

That  money  is  our  only  aim, 
That  all  things  bow  to  its  command, 

That  wealth  is  rank,  respect,  and  fame  : 

That  where  our  native  face  is  seen 
This  shameful  passion  shows  its  trace, 

And  hungry  avarice  makes  keen 

The  sharpened  features  of  our  race : 

That  art  is  dead,  religion  dull, 
Law  idle,  social  virtue  worse ; 

The  sharper  and  the  sharper's  gull 
Breed  and  divide  a  common  curse. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  65 

Some  truth  is  wrapped  in  many  lies: 

I  hold  it  base  the  golden  fool 
Can  win  a  reverence  from  our  eyes, 

And  bear  so  absolute  a  rule. 

Nowhere,  between  the  frozen  poles, 
Is  gold  so  reckoned  in  the  count; 

Nowhere  the  car  of  Mammon  rolls 
So  crushing  and  so  paramount. 

I  grant,  the  rogue  who  bears  a  brand, 
Sometimes,  may  feel  its  fiery  smart ; 

But  yet  the  wealth  in  his  command 
Is  flattered,  as  a  thing  apart. 

It  soothes  the  pangs  of  his  disgrace  ; 

It  gives  him  power,  if  not  respect  : 
With  shouts  we  yield  the  rich  man  place, 

But  whisper  of  the  rogue's  defect. 

The  purse-proud  scoundrels  whom  I  strip, 

Are  bare  that  all  may  see  them  pass; 
And  when  I  wield  my  scornful  whip, 

Through  them  I  castigate  the  class. 

f  (>* 


66  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

Perhaps,  like  Canute  on  the  shore, 
I  bid  the  raging  waves  subside, 

Half-conscious  that  the  next  fell  roar 
Will  bury  me  beneath  the  tide. 

Come  what  may  come,  the  word  is  said ; 

For  man's  behoof  my  best  I  give : 
The  martyr's  ring  may  fit  my  head, 

I  perish,  but  the  word  shall  live. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  67 


XXX. 

THE  poet's  word  that  stings  and  lives, 
Whose  blow  a  subtile  bane  distils, 

And  breeds  within  the  wound  it  gives 
The  larva  of  a  thousand  ills, 

To  horny-hided  brutes  like  these 
May  be  small  matter  for  distress  : 

But  if  my  ballads  cross  the  seas, 
And  thread  the  pathless  wilderness, 

And  climb  the  linked  mountains  o'er, 
And  down  the  sinuous  rivers  steer, 

And  warble  at  the  poor  man's  door, 
And  thunder  at  the  rich  man's  ear; — 

If  every  breeze  of  heaven  that  blows 
Shall  blow  these  leaves  about  the  land, 

And  every  tide  that  ebbs  and  flows 
Shall  wash  them  on  another  strand  ; — 


G8  THE   BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

If  years  shall  give  these  graven  lines 
A  deeper  meaning,  and  more  strength, 

And  men  discuss  them  o'er  their  wines, 
And  women  talk  of  them  at  length ; — 

Till,  in  all  ears,  each  noteless  name 
Is  blared,  as  with  a  trumpet's  blast, 

I  think,  these  knaves  may  feel  some  shame, 
Through  all  their  brazen  mail,  at  last. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  69 


XXXI. 

IF  all  the  liars  under  heaven 

Could  in  one  conclave  congregate, — 

To  every  tongue  were  charter  given 
To  hiss  at  thce  its  baneful  hate; — 

Were  reason  baffled  by  the  din, 

And  truth  made  blind,  and  justice  dumb, 
Till  every  shape  and  shade  of  sin 

Were  piled  upon  thy  guiltless  tomb;— 

Should  men,  deluded  by  the  cry, 
Become  thy  enemies  from  choice, 

Believe  and  circulate  the  lie, 

Defended  by  the  general  voice ; — 

Till  none,  heroically  run  mad, 

Dared  lift  a  secret  breath  with  me ; — 

For  man,  the  thing  would  make  me  sad  ; 
It  would  not  shake  my  faith  in  thee. 


70  THE   BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 


XXXII. 

I  KNOW  not  to  what  hearts  I  speak ; 

Perchance,  to  common,  human  ones; 
Or  humble  hearts,  hearts  very  meek, 

Through  which  the  general  current  runs. 

Of  him,  the  lowest  of  them  all, 

I  ask  in  tones  to  suit  his  ear, 
In  bated  breath,  with  dying  fall 

Made  tremulous  by  ghastly  fear ; — 

I  ask,  I  say,  this  timid  heart, 

If  your  beloved  were  cold  in  death, 

And  o'er  his  sacred  bier  the  mart 

Should  blow  its  sacrilegious  breath  ; — 

Each  greasy  huckster,  dropping  trade, 
Should  near  the  speechless  body  crowd, 

And,  by  its  silence  venturous  made, 

Should  spurn  the  dead  man  in  his  shroud ;- 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD.  71 

And  brawl,  and  lie,  and  call  him  foul, 
And  spit  their  rancorous  bane  about, 

Until  your  faint  and  stricken  soul 
Eevolted  at  the  general  shout; 

And,  stunned  with  horror,  you  recoiled, 
In  mute  amazement,  shocked  to  see 

The  man,  you  held  most  pure,  so  soiled 
With  their  abhorrent  blasphemy; — 

0  feeble  soul,  would  you  retire  ? 

Would  you,  submissive,  cringe  and  bow? 

1  answer,  flaming  into  ire, 

You'd  smite  the  miscreants  on  the  brow ! 


72  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XXXIII. 

FAINT  not,  strong  heart,  beneath  thy  grief! 

God  hears  thy  ever-rising  prayer; 
Be  not  impatient  for  relief, 

If  He  unmoved  thy  wrongs  can  bear! 

God  sees  the  wicked  delve  and  sow, 
He  sees  their  thistle's  purple  crown 

Flaunt  in  His  suffering  grain  j    but,  lo ! 
Ere  harvest  it  is  stricken  down. 

They  build  their  Babel  in  His  sight, 
From  founding  unto  coping  stone, — 

Their  pride  is  monstrous; — in  a  night 
They  lie  beneath  it,  overthrown. 

His  fires  consume  their  cities  proud, 

His  floods  rush  through  their  palace-gates ; 

His  prophet's  voice  sounds,  clear  and  loud, 
Midst  revelling  princes  and  estates. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  73 

Nor  can  tbe  humbler  sinner  shun 

The  blow  that  snaps  the  crown  of  gold; 

The  liar,  ere  his  lie  be  done, 

Before  the  crowd  falls  still  and  cold. 


For  where  the  fire  bursts  out  at  night, 
Men  ask  not  is  it  hut  or  tower; 

They  only  see  a  dreadful  light, 

And  shudder  at  a  boundless  power. 

Therefore  I  will  not  deem  this  band 

Of  knaves  too  mean  to  move  God's  wrath 

The  lightning,  slumbering  in  His  hand, 
Is  poised  on  its  appointed  path. 


74  THE  BOOK   OF   THE  DEAD. 


XXXIY. 

COARSE  miscreant,  with  the  cringing  back, 
And  shuffling  feet,  and  flickering  eyes, 

And  cloven  lip  whose  hideous  crack 

Buzzes  with  swarms  of  countless  lies! — 

Sly  reptile,  with  a  faint,  low  tone, 

Something  between  a  hiss  and  whine, 

Where  spite  and  meanness  meet  in  one, 
Serpent  and  spaniel  both  combine ! — 

You  have  questioned,  with  your  double  tongue, 
A  dead  man's  fame;   with  brutal  glee, 

Hints  and  suspicions  foul  have  flung: 
Now,  living  culprit,  answer  me ! 

Know  you  not  one  whose  tuneful  voice 
Eedeemed  your  own  ignoble  part, 

Whose  songs  shall  make  the  land  rejoice 
When  you  are  colder  than  your  heart? 


THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  75 

Puffed  with  your  wealth,  from  street  to  street, 
In  sordid  dreams,  you  smiling  sped, 

Through  ways  where  he,  with  shoeless  feet 
In  tatters,  almost  begged  his  bread, 

Till,  stung  with  want,  disease,  and  shame, 

He  gave  the  fruitless  struggle  up, 
And  drowned  the  buddings  of  his  fame 

Within  the  drunkard's  dizzy  cup. 

Nay,  lower  yet ;   from  deep  to  deep 

His  desperate  spirit  sank  away, 
Till,  mad,  men  saw  him  laugh  and  weep 

Beneath  the  public  light  of  day. 

Did  you  stretch  out  your  kindred  hand, 
To  help  that  starved  and  wretched  soul, 

Betwixt  his  shame  and  weakness  stand, 
To  save  him  from  the  certain  goal  ? 

No !    in  the  pauper's  filthy  cell 

A  stranger  lodged  the  vagrant  wretch, — 
A  poor,  mad  beggar!     Is  it  well? 

How  sleeps  your  conscience  on  this  stretch  ? 


76  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

I  charge  you,  in  the  name  of  God, 
Go  o'er  your  history  day  by  day, 

Since  children  sporting  on  the  sod, 
With  infant  love  at  infant  play, 

He  held  you  in  his  tender  arms; 

Then  touch  that  dreadful  day  of  doom, 
With  all  its  horrors  and  alarms, 

That  scowls  upon  him.  from  the  tomb. 

How  has  your  duty  been  performed— 
Your  simple  duty,  nothing  more — 

Towards  him  whose  baby  life  was  warmed 
From  the  same  father's  scanty  store? 

I  cannot  say  how  deeds  like  yours 
Appear  in  other  eyes,  nor  know 

How  even  your  fellow-rogue  endures 
To  look  upon  a  thing  so  low : 

But  in  the  awful  sight  of  God, 

There  burns  upon  your  brow  a  stain 

That  cries  forever,  "  blood  for  blood  !" 
Answer!    where  is  your  brother,  Cain? 


BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  77 


XXXV. 

I  TWINE  to-day  a  victor's  crown, 

To  deck  your  champion's  manly  head, 

And  shade  the  terrors  of  his  frown, 
O  doughty  foemen  of  the  dead  \ 

And  since  his  deeds  are  new  and  strange, 
No  common  chaplet  shall  he  wear ; 

Some  fresh  device  I  would  arrange, 
That  gest  and  guerdon  may  compare. 

The  cursed  cross  some  leaves  shall  yield, 
And  some  the  bough  that  Judas  bent, 

And  some  I'll  gather  from  the  field 

Where  Joseph's  brothers  pitched  their  tent. 

The  viper  of  the  proverb  old, 

That  stung  the  warming  breast,  shall  clasp 
The  wreath  together,  fold  in  fold 

With  him  that  bit  against  the  rasp. 


78  THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

And  strangling  both,  the  wily  snake, 
By  which  our  common  mother  fell, 

Upon  his  lifted  crest  shall  shako 
Just  Aristides'  pearly  shell. 

The  tears  that  banished  Marius  shed 
O'er  ruined  Carthage,  shall  be  seen, 

Like  dew-drops,  over  all  disprcad, 

To  keep  ihe  garland  bright  and  green, 

Wherever  truth  has  been  abused, 
Or  man's  ingratitude  has  lent 

Its  stain  to  aught,  it  shall  be  used, 
To  add  another  ornament. 

And  when  the  work  is  wholly  done, 
I'll  plume  the  chaplet  with  this  pen; 

And  having  crowned  your  champion, 
I'll  set  him  in  the  sight  of  men. 


THE  BOOK   OF   THE    DEAD.  79 


XXXVI. 

OUR  dead  to  us  are  never  dead 
Until  their  memories  are  erased  ; 

For  oftentimes  my  hands  are  led 
To  do  the  very  things  he  praised. 

Not  in  remembrance  are  they  done, 
But  timidly,  as  though  he  stood' 

Alive  beneath  the  blessed  sun, 

And  smiled  in  his  approving  mood. 

I  sing  some  ballad  gay  and  droll, 
Some  quip  he  loved,  ere  going  hence, 

And  think  it  strange  he  does  not  roll 
His  laughter  out,  and  drown  the  sense. 

I  do  not  think  he  cannot  smile ; 

I  drop  my  head,  and  bend  my  ear, 
And  only  ask  myself  the  while, 

Is  he  so  far  he  cannot  hear? 


80  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

It  costs  an  effort  of  the  mind, 

A  stretch  of  memory  strong  and  dread, 

Ere,  groping  through  my  brain.  I  find 
The  vision  of  his  dying  bed. 

Through  all  this  vvoful  history, 

I  have  called  on  him,  by  doubt  oppressed, 
And  that  he  would  not  answer  me, 

Has  moved  me  more  than  all  the  rest. 

'Twere  best  to  take  this  truth,  unmixed 
With  any  fancy:    'neath  the  sod 

His  rigid  lips  in  death  are  fixed, 
And  silent  as  the  lips  of  God. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.        81 


XXXVII. 

THE  fierce,  rebellious  fall  of  rain 

Seems  endless  through  this  dreary  night : 
It  pierces  in  my  blind  ;    the  pane 

Is  starred  and  streaked  with  watery  light. 

I  know  the  grass  upon  thy  tomb 
Is  streaming,  like  a  swimmer's  hair, 

And  all  thy  roses'  fragrant  bloom 
Is  floating  on  the  boisterous  air. 

Thy  reeking  violets  tangled  swim,- 
O'erburdened  bows  thy  eglilntine, 

And  stains  of  yellow  soil  bedim 
The  lustre  of  thy  myrtle  vine. 

The  treacherous  damp  hath  slowly  slid 

Through  oozy  roots  and  melting  clay, 
To  spread  upon  thy  coffin-lid, 

And  help  corruption  to  its  prey. 
f 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

Alas !    alas !    I  can  but  sigh  ; 

Yet  on  my  care  it  seems  a  stain, 
That  thou  so  desolate  shouldst  lie; 

And  tears  are  falling  with  the  rain, 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  83 


XXXVIII. 

WITH  song  of  birds,  and  hum  of  bees, 
And  odorous  breath  of  swinging  flowers, 

With  fluttering  herbs  and  swaying  trees, 
Begin  the  early  morning  hours. 

The  warm  tide  of  the  southern  air 
Swims  round,  with  gentle  rise  and  fall, 

And,  burning  through  a  golden  glare, 
The  sun  looks  broadly  over  all. 

So  fair  and  fresh  the  landscape  stands, 

So  vital,  so  beyond  decay, 
It  looks  as  though  God's  shaping  hands 

Had  just  been  raised  and  drawn  away. 

The  holy  baptism  of  the  rain 
Yet  lingers,  like  a  special  grace ; 

For  I  can  see  an  aureole  plain 

About  the  world's  transfigured  face. 


84  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

The  moments  come  in  dreamy  bliss, 
In  dreamy  bliss  they  pause  and  pass : 

It  seems  not  hard,  on  days  like  this, 
Dear  Lord,  to  lie  beneath  the  grass ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  -85 


XXXIX. 

IF  I  could  value  at  its  height 

The  power  I  have,  or  take  the  praise, 
I  daily  hear,  on  faith,  some  might 

Would  animate  these  failing  lays. 

Some  token  of  the  master-hand, 

Some  notes  struck  out  with  confidence, 

Some  fiat  from  the  throne,  would  stand 
As  offset  to  my  impotence. 

The  feeble  heart  of  self-born  doubt 
111  aids  a  purpose  great  and  strong; 

A  grand  truth,  timidly  set  out, 

Oft  drifts  upon  the  side  of  wrong. 

Sometimes  I  quake  with  voiceless  rage, 

Or  dull  the  sense  of  holy  love; 
And,  like  the  novice  on  the  stage, 

Half  fear  to  see  my  audience  move. 
8 


80  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 

No  trust  within  myself  I  feel ; 

I  sing  my  songs,  I  know  not  why ; 
The  maid  who  sings  beside  her  wheel 

Is  silenced  by  a  stranger's  eye. 

But  she  whose  tingling  ears  have  heard 
The  "brava!"  and  the  plaudits  loud 

Of  rapturous  men,  is  only  stirred 
To  utterance  by  a  listening  crowd. 

I  never  heard  these  plaudits  ring : 
I  cannot  take  the  poet's  place, 

And  boldly  to  the  nations  sing, 
Without  a  blush  upon  my  face. 

In  my  own  weak  and  faulty  way, 
I  pray  you,  let  my  song  proceed  ; 

For,  somehow,  God  and  nature  say, 

These  rhymes  were  purposed  and  decreed. 

To  one  God  gives  the  robin's  tone, 

To  one  the  carol  of  the  lark, 
To  one  the  mocking-bird's,  to  one 

The  owlet's,  drearier  than  the  dark. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD.  87 

Taunt  not  the  owlet  with  his  shrieks, 
Nor  say  he  lacks  the  others'  skill : 

A  voice  of  nature  through  him  speaks, 
According  to  God's  plan  and  will. 


88  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 


XL. 

AGAINST  the  words  which  current  pass, 
Whose  wisdom  even  folly  owns, 

That  he  who  keeps  a  house  of  glass 
Should  be  the  last  at  throwing  stones ;- 

The  fool  who  first  attacked  my  dead, 

Forgot  his  race's  history, 
Forgot  the  crystal  o'er  his  head, 

That  show-case  of  their  infamy. 

I  marvel^  ere,  in  search  of  sin, 

About  the  town  he  chose  to  roam, 

His  virtuous  quest  did  not  begin, 
Like  prudent  Charity,  at  home. 

There,  marked  and  ready  for  his  eyes, 
Is  guilt  no  eloquence  can  gloze, 

Which  all  men  see,  and  none  denies, 
That  stinks  beneath  the  public  nose; — 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  89 

That  rots  and  festers  in  the  light, 
To  draw  mankind's  abhorrent  stare  ; 

That,  in  the  very  depths  of  night, 
Glows  with  a  foul  putrescent  glare. 

Ere  he  set  forth  to  scour  the  land, 

And  cleanse  the  dunghills  of  the  earth, 

He  should  have  used  his  sweetening  hand 
About  the  mansion  of  his  birth. 

Surely  this  modern  Hercules, 

In  sallying,  must  have  stumbled  o'er 

The  loathsome  heap  that  taints  the  breeze, 
The  common  nuisance  at  his  door. 

Is  virtue,  like  philosophy, 

A  showy  saint,  of  mere  parade, 
Who  flaunts  an  outside  purity,  " 

Yet  lives  at  home  an  arrant  jade  ? 

If  he  at  whom  this  shaft  is  flown 

Dare  ask  what  name  is  here  arraigned, 

He  is  the  only  man  in  town 

Who  needs  to  have  the  thing  explained. 


90  THE  BOOK   OF    THK   DEAD. 


XLI. 

A  SCULPTURED  stone  to-day  was  laid, 
A  sacred  cross,  above  his  breast ; 

Arid  as  the  masons  wrought,  I  prayed 
The  heart  beneath  might  lie  at  rest. 

For,  turn  it  as  I  will,  a  doubt, 

That  grieves  the  spirit,  haunts  my  head, 
Lest,  haply,  this  indecent  rout 

Disturbs  the  slumber  of  my  dead. 

For  I  would  have  no  harsher  noise 
Than  grasses  rustling  in  the  breeze, 

Or  little 'birds  that  sing  their  joys 
Amongst  the  many-nested  trees; 

Or  the  slow  river's  lulling  sound, 
Or  the  low  piping  of  the  wind, 

To  breathe  a  drowsy  song  around 
The  couch  whereon  he  lies  reclined. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE    DEAD.  91 

A  sound  that  through  the  senses  steals, 
And  partly  breaks  their  quiet  deep, 

Till  a  half  consciousness  reveals 
The  very  blessedness  of  sleep. 

And  nature,  more  than  kind  to  me, 
Has  calmed  her  voice  to  my  desire; 

She  gently  sighs  through  herb  and  tree, 
And  sinks  the  pitch-note  of  her  choir. 

And  I,  myself,  who,  in  the  hush 

Of  serious  evening,  grieve  and  moan 

Beside  his  grave,  without  a  blush, 
Have  felt  my  manhood  drop  its  tone. 

All  things  assuage  my  troubles  sore, 

And  strive  to  make  my  sorrow  light; — 

Only  these  fierce  hyenas  roar 
Above  him  in  the  coward  night. 


THE   BOOK   OF   THE  DEAD. 


XLIi. 

IF  sorrow  is  love's  fruit,  and  love 
A  tinted  blossom  of  the  morn, 

That  drops  ere  noontide  from  above, 
A  wreck  for  man's  maturer  scorn  ; 

If  man  should  leave  the  flower  for  maids 
To  twine  amongst  their  wanton  hair, 

And  bear  the  bitter  fruit  to  shades 
Of  lonely  philosophic  care  ; 

If  icy  wisdom  is  life's  prize, 

And  love  an  artificial  want, 
I  fear  the  frozen  brains,  thus  wise, 

Are  in  their  wisdom  ignorant. 

From  point  to  point  they  slowly  climb, 
And  time  outruns  their  tardy  pace ; 

But  Love,  that  mocks  the  foot  of  Time, 
Bears  revelation  in  his  face. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD.  93 

A  revelation  somewhat  dashed 

With  clouds  of  doubt,  but  partly  riven, 

As  though  God  suddenly  had  flashed 
His  presence  on  us  out  of  heaven. 

Yet  filled  with  yearnings  vague  and  vast, 
That  beckon  from  the  top  of  things, 

With  longings  for  some  glory  past, 

With  consciousness  of  growing  wings ; 

With  sense  of  something  overhead, 

That  glimmers  through  this  dusty  strife, 

And  shines  victorious  on  the  dead, 
Above  the  darkened  vale  of  life. 

Towards  that  the  spirit  pants  to  move, 
On  that  Faith  turns  her  patient  eyes ; 

And  this  aspiring  heat  of  love 

Strikes  blind  the  wisdom  of  the  wise. 

It  is  an  awful  truth  revealed, 

Which  only  Love  can  bear  to  see, — 

God's  dateless  charter,  signed  and  sealed, 
That  warrants  immortality. 


94  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XLIIL 

THE  dreary  morning  of  my  woe 
Has  slowly  crept  to  light  again  : 

Cold  winter  day,  arrayed  in  snow, 
And  stripped  of  flowers  and  waving  grain! 

The  land  is  dumb  and  stiff  and  grim, 
And  wrinkled  o'er  with  frosty  rifts; 

Through  heaven  the  hurrying  vapors  skim. 
On  earth  the  hissing  snow-storm  drifts. 

The  naked  branches  of  the  wood 
Are  shivering  in  the  ashen  light ; 

A  seal  is  laid  upon  the  flood; 

The  evergreens  are  piled  with  white. 

No  cattle  browse,  no  small  bird  sings, 
No  motion  breaks  the  dismal  sleep, 

Save  where  yon  roaring  torrent  flings 
Its  icy  burdens  down  the  steep. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  95 

Love  knows  no  season  :    forth  I  go, 

Upon  my  holy  mission  bent, 
And  on  thy  grave  the  fair  white  snow 

Seems  nature's  cloth  of  sacrament. 

I  kneel,  and  with  me  kneels  the  dead  ; 

The  bread  is  broken,  the  wine  is  poured ; 
We  eat  and  drink  with  Him  who  bled 

To  join  our  souls,  with  Christ  our  Lord. 


96  THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 


XLIY. 

IF  mere  existence  be  Love's  scope, 
And  earth  his  brief  and  petty  scene, 

I  cry,  from  scorn  of  cheated  hope, 
'Twere  better  Love  had  never  been ! 

Why  should  man  toil,  by  slow  degrees, 
To  fit  his  soul  for  things  divine, 

While  Pan  is  peering  through  the  trees, 
And  Bacchus  pours  his  reeling  wine? 

Hope,  born  of  Love,  in  grief  replies, 

"  Why  draw  in  trouble  with  thy  breath  ? 

When  Adam  woke  in  Paradise, 

What  knew  he  of  predestined  death? 

"  He  ate  and  knew,  he  sinned  and  fell, 
He  saw  his  blood  upon  the  sod  : 

Death's  woful  tale  were  yet  to  tell, 
Had  he  been  faithful  to  his  G-od. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD.  97 

"When  love  arose  within  thy  soul, 
My  cheering  whisper  said  to  thee, 

'Stars  wax  and  Ayane,  but  this  shall  roll 
Its  orbit  round  eternity.' 

"Why  doubt  and  fear?     Take  love  on  trust, 
Nor  charge  thy  title  with  a  flaw; 

No  special  grace  requires  thy  dust 
Beyond  the  universal  law. 

"  The  promises  I  made  were  clear, 

They  cannot  pass,  they  keep  their  worth. 

You  say,  'Fulfilment  draws  not  near:' 
They  shall  not  be  fulfilled  on  earth. 

"You  stand  beneath  the  darkened  porch, 
And  quarrel  with  the  builder's  plan ; 

Anon,  I'll  rise,  and  light  a  torch, 
And  show  the  true  abode  of  man. 

"  What  thing  on  changing  earth  can  stand  ? 

What  work  of  human  hands  shall  last? 
You  draw  a  picture  on  the  sand, 

Then  shriek  at  every  wave  and  blast. 
9  9 


98  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

"Love  dwells  within  the  heart  of  heaven; 

Creating  light,  he  light  preserves ; 
Such  glimpses  as  to  man  are  given 

Are  more  than  faithless  man  deserves. 

"Despair  not,  though  Fear  cries,  dismayed, 
'Death  throws  a  shadow  far  and  wide.' 

Whatever  casts  on  earth  a  shade, 

Looks  brighter  on  its  heavenward  side. 

"  Though  to  thy  senses  Death  may  be 
A  grisly  phantom  of  the  night, 

We  call  him,  in  eternity, 

An  angel  of  transcendent  light. 

"No  higher  instinct  of  the  soul 

Bears  fruit  on  earth ;    it  blossoms  there ; 

It  strives  to  burst  from  time's  control ; 
It  seeks  an  outlet  everywhere. 

"  These  aspirations  are  not  vain ; 

The  callow  eaglet  beats  his  wing; 
The  nestling  lark  begins  the  strain 

That  he  in  highest  heaven  shall  sing. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  99 

"So  far  from  Death  defeating  Love, 

Death  saves  him  from  this  earthly  strife, 

Till  through  his  native  realm  he  move, 
The  spirit's  strength,  the  spirit's  life. 

"  Be  true  to  Love,  and  Love  for  thee 
Shall  bear  at  last  his  perfect  fruit: 

As  well  doubt  immortality 

As  doubt  its  highest  attribute." 


100  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


XLY. 

THESE  wild,  unquiet  thoughts  that  rove 
.From  land  to  land,  yet  find  no  rest, 

That  brood  amongst  the  clouds  above, 
Or  skim  the  billow's  foaming  crest ; 

That  wander  with  the  vagrant  bee, 
Boiling  in  joy  from  flower  to  flower, 

Or,  eagle-like,  stand  silently 

On  crags  that  front  the  sunset-hour; 

That  enter  in  the  ghastly  tomb, 

And  grope  amongst  the  clammy  dead, 

Or  take  the  soul's  enfranchised  plume, 
And  circle  towards  its  fountain-head ; 

That  struggle  through  the  greedy  crowd, 
With  hand  of  guilt  and  heart  of  steel, 

Or,  with  repentant  anguish  bowed, 
Fall  prone  where  sinners  only  kneel : 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       101 

Whence  come  these  thoughts?     Are  they  inborn? 

Am  I  possessed  by  heaven  or  hell? 
Am  I  more  fit  for  praise  or  scorn  ? 

I  wonder  much  ;    I  cannot  toll. 


102  THE   BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD. 


XLYI. 

BLOW  gently,  southern  breezes,  blow 
Around  the  circle  of  this  tomb! 

Blow  down  the  locust's  hanging  snow, 
And  blow  the  roses  into  bloom  ! 

Come  from  thy  golden  realm  of  day, 
With  spices  fresh  upon  thy  lips, 

And  breathe  across  the  new-mown  hay 
And  thyme  that  with  the  dew-drop  drips! 

Glide  softly,  rippling  river,  glide, 
And  hither  all  thy  music  send  ! 

Through  beds  of  sedge  and  lilies  slide, 
And  slender  reeds  that  rise  and  bend! 

Commingle  with  thy  mellow  voice 

The  springs  that  gurgle  from  the  ground, 

And  make  thy  cataract  rejoice 

In  the  full  splendor  of  his  bound  ! 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       103 

Lay  kindly,  gorgeous  sunset,  lay 
Upon  this  tomb  thy  rarest  dyes, 

And  with  the  showery  vapors  play, 
And  arch  thy  rainbow  in  the  skies! 

And  ere  thy  fiery  race  be  run, 

And  thou  in  sombre  clouds  must  fall, 

Gather  thy  sinking  rays  in  one, 
And  flash  a  glory  over  all ! 

Sing  lower,  moody  poet,  sing, 
Or  let  thy  song  in  silence  die  ; 

Thy  sorrow  is  a  jarring  string 
In  nature's  grander  harmony ! 

In  reverential -worship  crave 
Forgiveness  for  a  vain  despair! 

God  listens  now  ;    and  this  lone  grave 
Is,  as  an  altar,  set  for  prayer! 


104  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


XLVII. 

STANDING  upon  this  grave,  I  view 
The  world  with  my  anointed  eyes. 

They  pass  along,  a  motley  crew, 

The  people,  with  their  works  and  cries. 

Through  many  a  mazy  path  they  run, — 
They" join,  they  cross,  they  part,  they  meet; 

But  all  their  ways  converge  to  one, 
That  ends  beneath  my  very  feet. 

The  weariest  straggler  here,  shall  rest, 
The  fiercest  cry  here  gasp  for  breath ; 

The  bondman  with  his  lord  may  jest 
In  this  old  commonwealth  of  death. 

So  high  my  dizzy  stand  is  fixed, 
I  Cannot  judge  men's  deeds  aright ; 

They  seem  in  vain  confusion  mixed, 
Mere  motion,  indistinct  to  sight. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       105 

For  if  yon  emmet  boards  or  spends, 
Or  this  one  means  to  buy  or  sell, 

Or  what  that  other's  act  intends, 
Is  more  than  I  can  truly  tell. 

Or  if  that  be  a  sad  parade 

Of  mourners  following  the  dead, 

Or  warriors,  armed  with  spear  and  blade. — 
Yon  pygmies  winding  down  a  thread. 

But  this  I  know :  a  million  strands, 
Converging  to  this  central  place, 

Some  spider  wove,  and  all  the  bands 
Climb  here,  with  pallor  in  the  face. 

Each  by  his  separate  thread  ascends, 

As  partial  fortune  may  allot ; 
But  each,  with  empty  hands,  here  ends, 

And  in  his  season  is  forgot. 


106       THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 


XLVIII. 

BEFORE  the  scornful  face  of  death, 
How  small  and  purposeless  appear 

The  works  that  cost  us  panting  breath. 
And  caught  the  world's  applauding  cheer! 

The  man  I  loved  toiled  out  his  day, 
His  plans  he  laid,  his  aims  he  won  ; 

He  saw,  before  he  passed  away, 
His  fruitage  rounding  in  the  sun. 

What  though  his  enemies  despise 

The  ended  story  of  his  cares  ? 
I  doubt  not  his  seraphic  eyes 

Now  scorn  the  labor  more  than  theirs. 

To  the  freed  intellect,  whose  stand 

And  outlook  is  eternity, 
These  twinkling  worlds  are  grains  of  sand 

That  tumble  in  an  airy  sea: 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  107 

The  finite  senses'  highest  flight, 

Mere  aspiration  after  good, — 
A  blind  man  reaching  for  the  light 

He  feels,  but  never  understood. 

And  he,  perchance,  stands  side  by  side, 
And  smiles  upon  the  deeds  he  did, 

With  him  who,  in  a  kindred  pride, 
Built  the  sky-cleaving  pyramid. 

For  what  are  earthly  ills  and  joys, 

Before  the  soul's  eternal  gaze, 
If  not  remembered  as  the  to}^s 

She  played  with  in  her  childish  days? 

What  aim  of  man  is  high  or  low, 

O 

What  perishes,  or  what  survives, 
In  the  great  shock  and  overflow 
That  levels  all  our  temporal  lives? 

We  worms  spin  less  or  greater  cells, 
We  fashion  webs  in  which  to  die; 

What  are  the  reptile's  empty  shells 
Unto  the  air-borne  butterfly? 


108  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

A  purpose  runs  throughout  the  plan ; 

I  doubt  it  not ;   though  I  but  see, 
In  what  we  call  the  life  of  man, 

The  gambols  of  his  infancy  ; 

A  childish  effort  to  achieve, 

A  mocking  play  with  straw  and  sand, 
Which  all  the  frightened  children  leave, 

Forgot  in  sleep,  at  death's  command. 

For  if  we  dwell  in  peace  or  strife, 
Or  found  a  throne,  or  sing  a  lay, 

Is  little  in  the  coming  life, 
So  we  but  worship  and  obey. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  109 


XLIX. 

I,  FOR  my  part,  would  rather  tear 
The  trophies  from  Achilles'  head, 

And  suffer  in  the  wrath  I  dare, 

Than  raise  my  arm  against  the  dead. 

The  dead  are  God's  ;   His  awful  hands 
Rest  on  them ;   waving  swords  arise 

Ahove  them,  like  the  fiery  brands 
Before  the  gates  of  Paradise. 

'Tis  hard  to  brave  God's  wakened  wrath ; 

It  never  sleeps,  it  never  tires  ; 
It  hangs  above  its  victim's  path, 

It  bursts  beneath  his  feet  in  fires. 

Behold  it  in  the  lightning's  glow, 

And  hear  it  in  the  thunder's  roar, 
And  in  the  hungry  waves  that  sow 

With  helpless  wrecks  the  crumbling  shore ! 
10 


HO  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 

It  walks  with  pestilence  by  night, 
It  shapes  the  chances  of  the  day, 

And  when  the  sky  is  fair  and  bright, 
It  darts  from  heaven  a  withering  ray. 

It  guides  the  reinless  avalanche, 
It  bursts  the  river's  ancient  bound, 

And  makes  the  boldest  visage  blanch 
"With  shudders  of  the  yawning  ground. 

It  lies  in  ambush  everywhere, 
It  joins  with  folly  in  the  dance, 

Mirth's  freshest  wreath  its  temples  bear, 
It  wakes  the  light  of  beauty's  glance. 

Its  age  no  sum  of  years  can  tell ; 

It  tracks  the  soul  beyond  the  clay, 
It  lights  the  lurid  fires  of  hell, — 

It  sings  forever  in  this  lay! 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       Ill 


L. 


WHAT  special  baseness  of  our  kind 
Can  seize  upon  the  scheming  head, 

That  turns  its  vile,  irreverent  mind 
To  conflict  with  the  harmless  dead  ? 

The  monster  who  will  raise  his  hand 
To  strike  a  child  or  woman  low, 

Sears  on  his  front  the  coward's  brand  ; — 
What  's  he  who  strikes  the  dead  a  blow  ? 

I  have  sounded  all  the  foulest  things 
Within  the  foulest  human  hearts, 

Yet  nowhere  can  I  find  the  springs 
From  which  so  base  a  motive  starts. 

The  seven  deadly  sins  I  shook, 

Until  their  damned  adherents  wailed, 

Yet  found  no  face  that  did  not  look 
Upon  the  grave  with  eyelids  veiled. 


112  THE  BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD. 

Even  common  Avarice  I  wrung: 
He  spoke  not;   miserably  he  smiled, 

And  from  bis  burdened  bosom  flung 
A  loathed  and  degenerate  child. 

I  knew  the  horror  not  by  name ; 

My  hair  arose,  my  blood  ran  cold ; 
He  called  it,  with  a  blush  of  shame, 

His  bastard  son,  "  mere  Lust  of  Gold." 

I  traced  it  on  from  spot  to  spot, 
I  marked  its  way  by  slimy  streams, 

Till,  like  Eve's  toad,  I  saw  it  squat 

At  my  rogues'  ears,  to  shape  their  dreams. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  113 


LI. 


THE  beef-faced  brute  who  leads  this  band, 
And  serves  as  mouth-piece  for  the  crew, 

I  pity;   for  I  understand 

His  school-days  were  but  brief  and  few. 

I'll  take  him  as  I  find  him  then, 

Eude,  coarse,  ill-mannered,  vulgar,  blunt ; 

Expecting  nothing  from  the  pen 

But  the  swine's  voice,  a  simple  grunt. 

Grace  and  indulgence  shall  be  his: 
He  cannot  speak  without  abuse 

Of  something,  though  that  something  is, 
Chiefly,  the  language  which  we  use. 


10* 


114  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LII. 

TO-DAY  I  faced  my  enemies; 

In  smooth-tongued  converse,  veiling  hate, 
We  talked  with  hypocritic  ease, 

And  brought  our  business  in  debate. 

And  all  the  time,  the  knave,  who  stung 

The  heart  that  warmed  him,  snake-like  stirred ; 

And  all  the  time,  their  leader's  tongue 
Slaughtered  the  English  word  by  word. 

And  round  about  me  winked  and  leered 
The  common  herd  ;    and,  one  and  all, 

Piled  lie  on  lie  until  I  feared 

The  Lord,  perforce,  might  hear  them  bawl. — 

Until,  in  wonder  and  alarm, 
I  gazed  on  traitor,  rogue  and  clown, 

Expecting  God's  avenging  arm, 

Each  moment,  would  come  flashing  down ; 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       115 

And  they,  who  bartered  in  the  street 
His  priceless  truth  for  treacherous  gold, 

Would  fall  death-stricken  at  my  feet, 
As  Ananias  fell  of  old. 

One  fool,  lob-sided  and  bare-browed, 
Mindless  of  home,  in  spiteful  glee, 

Of  gibbeting  my  name  talked  loud, 

As  though  he  shared  the  hangman's  fee. 

One  blustered,  swaggered,  stamped,  and  swore, 
Till  conscience  was  by  rage  beguiled  ; 

And  one,  whose  hair  was  silvered  o'er, 
Babbled,  unnoticed,  like  a  child. 

But  all  the  while  the  subtler  cur, 

Whose  bark  had  harried  on  the  pack, 

Was  out  of  sight :    such  things  prefer 
To  stab  one's  honor  in  the  back. 

So  each,  according  to  his  kind, 

Wriggled,  and  licked  his  cloven  tongue, 

And  lied,  as  fancy  led  his  mind, 
And  round  about  his  venom  flung; 


116  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

And  I,  amidst  this  reptile  throng, — 
Giants  in  fraud,  but  dwarfs  in  wit, — 

Stood  calmly,  and  composed  a  song, 
Like  Eagner  in  the  serpents'  pit. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  117 


MIL 

I  CANNOT  pass  that  threshold  o'er 
Without  a  sinking  of  the  soul ; 

A  spectre  haunts  the  open  door, 

And  round  the  walls  low  murmurs  roll. 

A  voice  seems  calling  from  within, 

That  should  not  speak  on  earth  again ; 

The  voice  sounds  ghostly  faint  and  thin, 
But,  O  my  soul !    how  strangely  plain  ! 

It  cries  for  vengeance  at  my  hand, 
It  dooms  me  to  this  task  forlorn, 

It  drives  me  on  as  with  a  brand, 
It  sneers  my  weakness  into  scorn. 

The  hopeless  fate  of  ancient  Greece, 
That  ground  resistance  into  dust, 

Lad  CBS  that  mandate,  and  I  cease 
To  struggle,  and  am  onward  thrust. 


118  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

I  do  my  part.      The  place  is  cursed 

Beyond  man's  prayers;    the  curse  must  fall; 

A  desecrated  grave  has  burst, 

And  poured  its  darkness  over  all. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  119 


LIY. 

WHY  sorrow  for  the  hopeless  past, 

Or  strive  again  to  re-create 
That  shattered  mould,  in  which  were  cast 

The  hardened  features  of  our  fate  ? 

I  know  not;    but  my  soul  rebels 

Against  the  tyranny  of  time, 
Fights  inch  by  inch,  and  dearly  sells 

The  freedom  of  her  native  clime. 

Chained,  scourged,  oppressed  and  overthrown, 
Defiance  fires  her  quenchless  breath ; 

She  spurns  the  conqueror  on  his  throne, 
And  dares  him  to  the  test  of  death. 

She  will  not  yield  the  past  as  gone  ; 

She  stretches  back  her  yearning  eyes ; 
She  counts  her  memories  one  by  one, 

And  calls  them  all  realities. 


120       THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Beyond  the  gulfs  of  death  expand 

Great  visions,  and  she  forward  springs; 

Yet  will  not  loose  her  clinging  hand 
From  its  fast  hold  on  earthly  things. 


Time  cowers  before  her  dauntless  tread ; 

She  sweeps  into  eternity, 
With  her  immortal  wings  outspread, 

Trailing  her  whole  grand  history. 


THE   BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD.  121 


LV. 

IP  to  the  soul,  as  to  the  sense, 

The  past  were  cancelled,  and  no  more, 

And  this  divine  intelligence 

To  mortal  weakness  rendered  o'er; 

So  that  the  soul,  for  countless  years, 
Must  stand  amid  the  heavenly  host, 

And  see,  through  her  despairing  tears, 
The  past  irrevocably  lost ; 

I  would  bear  my  immortality 

With  something  like  contempt,  and  lift 
A  prayer  to  death  to  set  me  free 

From  such  a  poor,  imperfect  gift. 

To  find  eternity  unfold 

A  shattered  and  disjointed  ring, 
In  which  time  lords  it  as  of  old, 

Were  to  the  soul  a  sorry  thing. 
11 


122       THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Our  aspirations  were  undone, 
Our  hopes  an  overshot  mistake, 

If  past  and  future,  merged  in  one, 
Be  not  the  life  to  which  we  wake. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE   DEAD.  123 


LVL 

ETERNAL  God,  before  Thy  face 

How  nature  and  Thy  creature,  man, 

Shrink  their  proportions!    time  and  space 
Contract,  and  narrow  to  a  span ! 

What  is  man's  life  within  Thy  sight  ? — 
The  moment  that  we  climbers  stand 

Toppling  upon  a  dizzy  height, 

With  yawning  death  on  every  hand. 

We  vaunt  the  knowledge  gained  by  sense, 
We  bound  creation  with  our  pride, 

Forgetting,  in  our  ignorance, 

That  what  reflects  must  also  hide. 

Our  mirror  shows  a  glorious  sight : 

A  re-created  world  we  find 
Within  ourselves ;    its  forms  delight ; 

We  ask  not  what  may  be  behind. 


124  THE   BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

And  man,  the  vain,  presuming  fool, 
Who  measures  all  by  time  and  space, 

Picks  up  his  little  ell-wand  rule, 
And  gravely  marks  a  planet's  place. 

And  yet  why  will  the  soul  assail, 
With  anxious,  stubborn  questionings, 

The  secret  of  this  polished  veil, 
And  beat  it  with  her  fiery  wings  ? 

Until  the  glass,  in  \vhich  we  see 

The  world  so  fair,  be  ground  to  dust, 

The  greater  sight  and  mystery 
Is  hidden,  and  received  on  trust. 

0  Lord,  break  down  this  blinding  bar, 
And  let  my  struggling  spirit  pass 

Beyond  the  orbit  of  the  star 

Just  glimmering  through  the  optic  glass ! 

1  pine  for  knowledge  unperceived, 
I  doubt  the  evidence  of  sense ; 

I  trust  the  truth  will  be  achieved 
When,  in  the  soul,  I  journey  hence  ! 


TUK  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  125 


LVII. 

ONE  counsels  me  to  drop  my  scourge, 
To  live  at  peace,  and  strive  to  please  : 

Not  for  the  rogues'  sakes  would  he  urge 
His  plea,  but  for  my  private  ease. 

If  with  myself  my  duty  stopped, 
And  the  commission  of  my  God 

"Were  cancelled,  long  ere  this  I  had  dropped 
To  nothing  in  my  kindred  clod. 

The  first  faint  stir  of  human  pain 
Had  left  with  me  no  after-smart, 

Could  I  have  rent  my  aching  brain, 

Or  probed  with  steel  my  sorrowing  heart. 

I  scorn  the  soul  that  never  felt 

A  blow  to  shake  its  stolid  ease : 
Itself  it  knows  not.     Death,  soon  dealt, 

Were  more  than  life  on  terms  like  these. 
11* 


126  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LYIII. 

IF  good  and  evil  are  but  one, 

Or  to  one  end  arid  issue  made, 
And  that  effulgent  central  sun, 

That  makes  the  brightness,  casts  the  shade ; 

If  our  deluded  moral  sight, 

The  brightness  seals,  the  darkness  blinds, 
And  all  the  lines  'twixt  wrong  and  right 

Are  vain  confusions  of  our  minds; 

If  we  who  hurry  Sin  aside, 

And  set  him  on  a  throne  abhorred, 

Make,  in  our  intellectual  pride, 
A  power  almost  above  the  Lord ; 

If  what  Omnipotence  permits, 

He  forms  and  sanctions  and  sustains, 

And  smiles  to  see  our  stretching  wits 
Defining  that  which  He  ordains; 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  127 

If  this  faith-strangling  creed  be  true, 
Through  all  its  tangled  subtilties,- 

We  have  but  followed  out  the  clue 
Where  lead  our  new  philosophies. 

Rather  for  me  the  brimstone  bed, 

The  satyr  devil  of  the  child, 
Or  those  rude  horrors  that  o'erspread 

Men's  fancies  when  our  creed  was  wild. 

Sin  is  God's  sorrow;    and  the  soul 
That  never  feels  the  inward  strife, 

As  hell  and  heaven  together  roll, 
Has  never  lived  the  spirit's  life. 

Give  me,  O  God,  the  agony, 

The  war  with  evil,  up  and  down ! 

Give  me  Thy  tearful  sympathy, 

The  triumph,  and  the  shining  crown  ! 


THE  JiOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


LIX. 

LONG  golden  days  and  mellow  nights 
Have  lit  and  dimmed  this  earthly  scene, 

The  trees  have  bloomed  in  reds  and  whites, 
And  now  again  are  tawny  green, 

Since,  in  the  glooming  winter  snow, 
I  laid  thee  from  the  world  apart, 

And  felt  the  chilly  season  flow 
Inward  upon  my  shrinking  heart. 

Long  summer-days  may  come  and  go, 

In  sunshine  or  in  silver  rain, 
The  scented  flowers  may  bud  and  blow, 

The  fields  may  sprout  in  fruitful  grain  ; 

Yet  in  the  fiercest  blaze  of  day, 

When  all  the  panting  world  stands  still, 

One  thought  will  wrap  the  whole  in  gray, 
And  strike  me  with  that  wintry  chill. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  129 


LX. 

Js  grief  a  weakness  of  the  mind, 
A  useless,  discontented  strain 

Against  the  galling  links  that  bind 
Our  lives  in  fate's  remorseless  chain  ? 

Does  God,  with  hard,  averted  ear, 
Refuse  to  hear  His  children  cry? 

Does  every  sob  and  sliding  tear 

Draw  down  the  brow  upon  His  eye? 

If  this  be  so,  in  vain  you  say, 
He  in  His  image  fashioned  me, 

And  breathed  within  my  sentient  clay 
His  fervent  immortality. 

I  reason  back  from  man  to  God, 

With  God's  own  warrant  for  my  creed, 

And  delving  in  the  dusty  clod, 
I  find  at  last  the  primal  seed  : 


130  THE   BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

And  cry,  that  every  throb  of  pain, 
The  present  and  the  after-smart, 

Is  echoed  o'er  and  o'er  again 

In  God's  vast,  semi-human  heart. 

I  keep  this  faith,  to  hearten  dread, 
That  every  tear  of  king  or  churl, 

In  pure  arid  honest  sorrow  shed, 
Shines  in  God's  crown  a  lucid  pearl. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       131 


LXI. 

MY  cries  of  wrath  are  fitful  cries ; 

As  an  attack  of  sharper  pain 
That,  in  a  lingering  illness,  tries 

The  frame,  then  passes  off  again, 

Js  this  possession  of  my  hate, 

That  intermits  but  still  returns  ; 
Now  drives  me  flaming  towards  my  fate, 

Now  smoulders,  but,  though  smouldering,  burns. 


i 


And,  sometimes,  while  my  fancies  play 
Amongst  the  vapors  of  my  fire, 
cast  my  knotted  scourge  away, 
And  rest  the  culprits  from  my  ire. 


I  only  rest :    anon  my  lash 

Shall  fall  more  sternly  than  before, 
And  measured  melody  shall  dash 

Its  waves  into  a  savage  roar. 


132  THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXII. 

I  SAT  with  men ;    few  words  were  said  ; 

Of  pregnant  things  we  mused  and  talked, 
When  he,  who  had  betrayed  the  dead, 

In  through  the  doorway  shambling  walked. 

He  stooped  beneath  his  load  of  sin, 

The  Atlas  of  a  world  of  lies ; 
His  wrinkled  and  cadaverous  skin 

Hung  trembling  o'er  his  toad-like  eyes. 

The  chase  of  gold  had  worn  him  lank, 
And  dried  his  blood,  and  pinched  his  face; 

Our  common  manhood  downward  shrank 
Within  him,  at  its  own  disgrace. 

This  wretch  who  dared  not  speak  the  truth, 
With  God  to  back  him,  seemed  so  vile, 

That  anger  softened  into  ruth, 
And  tried  to  give  a  sickly  smile. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  133 

I  almost  stretched  a  helping  hand, 
To  raise  him  amongst  men  again ; 

But  started,  for  I  saw  his  brand, — 
The  long-forgotten  brand  of  Cain ! 


134  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXII1. 

WHAT  cuts  thee  from  thy  fellow-wretch, 

And,  in  the  press  of  busy  day, 
Makes  gaps  of  solitude  to  stretch 

About  thee  in  the  peopled  way  ? 

I  never  saw  thee,  arm  in  arm, 

Companioned  by  a  brother  knave, 
Planning;  some  scheme  of  fraud  or  harm, 

O 

Such  as  thy  coward  heart  might  brave. 

Men  talk,  with  an  averted  face, 

Of  gold  to  thee,  and  there  they  end ; 

There  is  no  outcast  to  abase 

Himself  by  calling  thee  his  friend. 

Cold  serpent,  never  on  thy  head 

Had  woman's  eye  one  glance  to  fling; 

She  shrank,  with  an  instinctive  dread, 

That  saved  her  from  thy  treacherous  sting. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  135 

Art  thou  self-conscious  that  for  thee 
No  kindred  heart  shall  ever  swell, 

That  to  thy  meanness  there  shall  be 
Companionship. — no,  not  in  hell? 


136  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 


LXIV. 

I  WATCHED  at  eve  beside  thy  tomb, 

With  something  like  a  pang  of  shame; 

For  snails  had  crawled  from  out  the  gloom, 
And  dragged  their  tracks  across  thy  name. 

Across  thy  sacred  name  I  saw 

The  foul  defacers'  oozing  slime ; 
And  marvelled  at  the  higher  law 

That  made  such  sacrilege  no  crime. 

The  worms  were  fled,  the  tomb  defiled ; 

In  vain  my  wrath ;    I  could  but  weep. 
Then  knelt  I  down,  and,  as  a  child, 

I  faintly  prayed  myself  to  sleep. 

Dawn  broke  at  length ;    I  raised  my  head ; 

The  desecrating  stains  had  flown ; 
And  on  the  tablet  of  the  dead 

Some  hand  had  laid  a  lily  down. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD.  137 


LXV. 

ARCFI  traitor,  in  thy  restless  bed, 
I  wonder  oft  if  thou  dost  see 

The  warning  phantom  of  the  dead 
Appear,  and  hover  over  thee. 

If  in  the  hush  of  middle  night, 
He  comes,  a  shape  of  ghastly  fear, 

And  blasts  thy  vain-averted  sight, 
And  whispers  in  thy  tingling  ear. 

Beneath  his  touch  how  creeps  thy  skin, 
How  stirs  to  life  thy  matted  hair, 

How  chilly  and  how  deadly  thin 

Thy  blood  crawls  backward  to  its  lair 

What  says  he  then  ?     Does  he  arraign 
Thy  baseness  and  thy  lust  for  gold ; 
Or  stab  thee,  o'er  and  o'er  again, 

With  kindness,  as  he  did  of  old? 
12* 


138        THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Doubtless,  thou  hast  thy  own  defence, 

Some  self-deluding  lie  to  tell, 
Some  poor  excuse,  to  recompense 

The  tortures  of  thy  inward  hell. 

Can  that  avail,  when  sleep  has  stripped 
The  conscience  of  deceiving  flesh, 

And  memory  has  open  ripped 

Her  wounds,  that  ache  and  bleed  afresh  ? 

I  cannot  say.     I  see  thee  lie 

Beneath  his  gaze;   around  thee  yawn 

Great  gulfs  of  darkness ;    and  a  cry 
Goes  struggling  upward  for  the  dawn. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  139 


LXYI. 

IP  all  this  passion  run  to  waste, 
And  leave  no  seed  upon  the  land, 

And  scornful  men  pass  by  in  haste 
The  painful  culture  of  my  hand ; 

And  like  some  monstrous  natural  thing, 
That  leaves  no  kindred  progeny, 

The  wild,  disordered  songs  I  sing 
Lapse  into  mere  nonentity;— 

'Twere  vain  and  false  denial  then, 
To  laugh,  and  innocently  say, 

More  harm  is  in  the  piping  wren 
Than  in  my  ballads'  whole  array. 

My  bitter  song  is  not  unheard ; 

The  thoughtful  angels  listening  sit ; 
I  tremble  on  from  word  to  word  ; 

For  shall  I  not  be  judged  by  it  ? 


140  THE   BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 


LXVII. 

I  DO  not  draw  for  man  alone 
This  magic  web  of  woven  air; 

I  think  one  soul,  that  hence  is  flown, 
Is  wistful  how  his  loved  ones  fare. 

I  fear  that  all  my  tears  and  sighs 
Disturb  his  clear  immortal  day ; 

So  I  abase  my  running  eyes, 
And  sigh  as  softly  as  I  may. 

And  since  I  know  he  loathes  a  wrong, 
Whene'er  I  touch  my  scornful  strings, 

I  mean  that  he  shall  hear  my  song, 
And  peal  it  till  the  welkin  rings. 

Yet  not  to  pierce  his  heavenly  ear 
With  the  cruel  edge  of  human  woe, 

I  deck  it  out  in  minstrel's  gear, 
And  move  to  music  sad  and  low. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  141 

I  little  care  what  brow  is  bent 

Against  my  purpose.      Men  may  fill 

The  land  with  sneers  at  my  intent, 
So  he  impute  to  me  no  ill. 

The  laugh,  the  jeer,  the  look  of  scorn, 
Are  naught  to  me ;    they  pass  me  by, 

As  the  light  fleecy  cloud  that  is  borne 
A  moment  through  an  April  sky. 

A  moment,  and  the  frown  is  fled, 

The  mouth  is  dumb,  the  scoffer  gone; 

While  through  the  world  a  song  has  sped, 
And  in  immortal  youth  lives  on. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXVIII. 

IF  I  were  well  assured  of  this, 

That  what  I  write  shall  never  die, 

I  would  fold  my  hands  in  dreamy  bliss, 
And  down  to  death  would  calmly  lie. 

For  I  am  haunted  by  a  doubt 
That  some  un worthiness  of  mine, 

O-r  of  my  song,  may  blot  me  out, 
And  raze  my  record  line  by  line. 

JS"ot  the  pure  h'eart,  the  pure  design, 

The  mind's  high  sanction,  nor  the  might 

Of  conscious  power  that,  strong  as  wine, 
Befools  my  judgment  as  I  write; 

Nor  all  the  loud  and  frothing  stuff 
Of  windy  rhetoric,  wrung  to  rhyme, 

Have  in  their  substance  salt  enough 
To  save  a  verse  from  gnawing  time. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  143 

Beyond  all  this,  above  it  all, 

Some  subtile  essence,  undefined, 
Keeps  fresh  the  songs  that  rise  and  fall 

In  surges  through  the  common  mind. 

I  can  but  lay  on  God  that  fear ; 
And  trust  that,  in  some  low  decree, 

i  O  / 

Far  in  the  poets'  shining  rear, 
The  after-times  may  think  of  me. 


144  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXIX. 

DEAR  Lord,  to  Thee  I  cry  aloud  I 

My  task  is  greater  than  my  strength  ; 

My  spirit  fails,  my  knees  are  bowed, 
I  sink  beneath  my  load  at  length  1 

Thus  far  I  struggled,  and  thus  far 
Mere  human  courage  bore  me  on  : 

I  followed  forth  a  setting  star; 

The  guide  is  lost,  the  star  is  gone ! 

O  feet  that  toiled  up  Calvary, 

O  brow  that  bore  the  bloody  crown, 

O  mortal  God,  I  call  on  Thee, 

Bruised  by  the  world  and  trampled  down ! 

I,  clinging  to  Thy  cross,  invoke 
Thy  pity  on  a  sinner's  prayer! 

Grant  me  a  respite  from  this  yoke- 
Destruction,  rather  than  despair! 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD.  145 

My  race  is  run  if  here  I  fail, 

And  all  my  panting  labor  vain  ; — 

Tear  Thy  pierced  fingers  from  the  nail, 
And  touch  me  into  life  again ! 


146  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXX. 

I,  WANDERING  by  this  bitter  shore 

Of  death  and  sorrow,  sometimes  turn 

My  vision  inward,  and  explore 
Myself,  the  more  myself  to  learn. 

What  shock  of  chance  has  rent  this  breach 
'Twixt  nature  and  my  ranging  eyes, 

And  made  her  visions  dumb  to  teach, 
And  hushed  her  starry  harmonies? 

"Where  has  the  silver  lily  birth  ? 

Where  winks  the  early  violet? 
In  what  fair  corner  of  the  earth 

Shines  morn  on  meadows  dewy-wet? 

Where  do  the  linked  seasons  run 

Their  mystic  dance  through  cold  and  heat? 
Where  flash  the  swallows  in  the  sun? 

Where  sing  the  robins,  full  and  sweet? 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  147 

What  stills  the  cataract's  shout  of  strength  : 

O  / 

The  chorus  of  the  chanting  waves, 
That  hurl  their  Titan  bulks  at  length 
On  beaches  and  through  sounding  caves? 

Where  is  the  pageant  of  the  night, 

The  burnished  shield  of  dauntless  Mars, 

Soft  Yenus  with  her  liquid  light, 
And  all  the  congregated  stars  ? 

Where  is  the  sense  that,  through  the  whole, 
Caught  glimpses  of  the  inner  truth, 

And  whispered  somewhat  to  my  soul  ? — 
Where  is  the  glory  of  my  youth  ? 

Dead  nature  haunts  me  like  a  ghost, — 

A  hollow  shell  of  broken  laws; 
But  this  appalls  my  spirit  most, — 

I  cannot  be  the  man  I  was. 


148  THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXI. 

WHAT  man  shall  sot  bis  hardened  brow 
Against  the  cause  that  I  maintain  ? 

Or,  looking  in  God's  face,  avow 
He  holds  my  motives  in  disdain  ? 

Above  myself  1  strive  to  move, 

Earth  tempts  not  my  determined  flight; 
The  holy  frenzy  of  my  love 

Aspires  to  touch  the  central  light. 

What  power  of  earth  shall  turn  aside 
A  zealot  from  his  single  aim  ? 

What  human  courage  shall  abide 
The  will  that  no  reverse  can  tame? 

The  meanest  thing  that  crawls  the  sod 
May  be  the  link  on  which  depends 

The  grandest  providence  of  God, 
And  wonderfully  work  out  its  ends. 


THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  149 

I  give  my  body  to  the  dust; 

I  wing  my  spirit  to  the  sky ; 
I  blindly  grasp  the  hand  I  trust, 

And  follow,  never  asking  why. 

God's  purpose  is  above  my  mind : 
O'er  dubious  ways  I  hold  it  fast; 

And  trust  He  mercifully  will  find 
Some  refuge  for  my  soul  at  last. 


13* 


150  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXIL 

THROUGH  the  dark  path,  o'er  which  I  tread, 

One  voice  is  ever  at  my  ear, 
One  muffled  form  deserts  the  dead, 

And  haunts  my  presence  far  and  near. 

In  times  of  doubt,  he  whispers  trust ; 

In  danger,  drops  a  warning  word ; 
And  when  I  waver  from  the  just, 

His  low,  complaining  sigh  is  heard. 

He  follows  me,  with  patient  tread, 
From  daybreak  until  evening's  close ; 

He  bends  beside  me,  head  *by  head, 
To  scent  the  violet  or  the  rose. 

And  sharing  thus  my  smallest  deed. 
When  all  the  works  of  day  are  past, 

And  sleep  becomes  a  blessed  need, 
He  lies  against  my  heart  at  last. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  151 

Dear  ghost,  I  feel  no  dread  of  thee ; 

A  gracious  comrade  thou  art  grown  ; 
Be  near  me,  cheer,  bend  over  me, 

When  the  long  sleep  is  settling  down ! 


152  THE  BOOK   OF  THE  DEAD. 


LXXIII. 

I  FOUGHT  with  spectres  in  the  night ; — 

I,  sinful,  feeble,  faltering,  lone, 
With  all  hell's  legions  in  my  sight, 

Strove  on,  with  cry,  and  sob,  and  groan. 

Vague,  shapeless  things,  of  fear  and  doubt, 
Assailed  my  soul;    with  sudden  start, 

Temptations  stretched  their  fingers  out, 
And  almost  touched  me  on  the  heart. 

Alive  with  evil  nature  seemed ; 

She  spawned  and  hatched  my  myriad  foes; 
Hell  from  the  lily's  centre  gleamed, 

And  fumed  its  vapors  from  the  rose. 

Earth's  surface  crawled  with  loathsome  life; 

The  streams  ran  blood;   the  very  grass 
Grew  into  snakes,  and  endless  strife 

Writhed  through  the  foul,  abounding  mass. 


THE  BOOK   OF   THE    DEAD.  153 

The  rocks  and  trees  took  features  on, 
And  stared  dumb  horrors  in  my  face ; 

Like  sheeted  ghosts  the  clouds  were  drawn, 
Great,  mournful  shapes,  in  endless  chase. 

And  through  the  whole,  a  wretched  tone, 
That  killed  the  spirit  in  my  breast, 

Ran  on  forever, — a  low  moan 
That  never,  never  hoped  for  rest. 

It  sighed  o'er  life,  it  sighed  o'er  death, 

It  found  no  comfort  anywhere, 
Save  in  the  self-afflicting  breath 

O 

Of  its  own  desolate  despair. 

I  found  a  voice :    I  shrieked  aloud 
To  him  I  love,  my  dearest  dead  : 

Dawn  smote  the  farthest  eastern  cloud 
With  a  low  streak  of  dusky  red. 

He  glimmered  from  a  rising  star  ; 

His  face  was  pitiful  and  mild. 
Dawn  grew;    the  phantoms  fled  afar; 

He  looked  upon  my  face,  and  smiled. 


154  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXIV. 

WERE  beauty  nearer  the  divine 

Than  beauty  is,  its  power  were  vain 

To  move  this  steadfast  heart  of  mine 
Beyond  the  line  of  faint  disdain. 

Who  wins  my  heart,  must  find  the  way 
A  purer  love  has  grandly  trod, — 

Must  track  it  towards  the  fount  of  day, 
Sheer  upward  to  the  feet  of  God. 

O  loving  heart,  serenely  bold, 

The  way  is  plain,  but  hard  to  tread  ; 

It  lies  through  regions,  vast  and  cold, 
Between  the  living  and  the  dead! 

Come  hither,  at  the  twilight  hour, 

Beneath  this  pine-tree's  solemn  gloom! 

Pluck,  as  a  spell,  a  grave-side  flower, 
And  I  shall  greet  thee  from  the  tomb  ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  155 


LXXV. 

A  SERVICE  done  to  me  is  naught; 

The  gauds  and  trinkets  of  this  world 
I  hold  as  more  than  dearly  bought 

AVhen  my  contemptuous  lip  has  curled. 

The  purest  fame  that  man  achieves 
He  wins  himself,  against  our  bent; 

The  grudged  homage  he  receives 
Is  but  hard-wrung  acknowledgment. 

The  name  that  stands  through  envious  time, 
Stands  unsupported  by  the  race — 

In  man's  despite — a  power  sublime 
That  holds  in  awe  the  abject  base. 

What  were  our  Shakespeare's  deathless  fame, 
Dependent  on  man's  jealous  praise  ? 

He  moves  before  us,  with  God's  claim 
To  kinghood  flashing  from  his  bays. 


156  THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

True  greatness  reigns  by  right  divine, 
Within  itself  it  keeps  its  state ; 

With  all  the  votive  wreaths  we  twine, 
Ourselves  we  do  but  elevate. 

Praise  is  cold  service.      More  than  fame 
I  prize  the  gift  of  human  love; 

And  humbly  tearful,  at  its  name, 

Towards  my  race  I  trembling  move. 

O  fount  of  joy!    O  well  of  tears! 

I  throw  myself  upon  thy  brink, — 
I,  thirsty,  famished,  weak  with  fears, 

Eeel  to  thy  singing  waves,  and  drink ! 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.        157 


LXXVI. 

YE  men  of  evil,  ye  who  dare 

Assail  the  consecrated  grave, 
And  lay  its  awful  mysteries  bare, 

What  impious  issue  do  you  crave? 

Is  this  last  fane,  whose  walls  are  hushed 
Against  fierce  Mammon's  godless  jar, 

This  sanctuary,  to  be  crushed, 

At  length,  beneath  his  golden  car? 

Are  ye  not  satisfied  to  see 
The  wrecks  of  sanctity  around, — 

Man's  faith,  man's  love,  life's  poetry, 

Laid  prostrate  with  the  common  ground  ? 

Shall  this  sole  refuge  of  a  race 

That  groans  in  bondage,  self-imposed, 
Be  made  a  public  market-place, 

Where  hucksters'  stuffs  shall  be  exposed  ? 
14 


158  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

Beware !   you  pull  a  temple  down 
Whose  shelter  may  one  day  be  dear, 

Whose  silence  you  may  pray  to  drown 
The  curses  howling  in  your  ear. 

Before  whose  desecrated  door 

You  will  crawl,  with  anguish  and  dismay. 
And  pray  God's  mercy  to  restore 

The  broken  arch,  and  smooth  the  way  • 

That  you,  yourselves,  may  enter  in ; 

Less  fearful  of  the  hell  to  come, 
Than  of  the  unrelenting  din 

That  drove  you  downward  to  the  tomb. 

What  if  it  be  no  refuge  then  ? — 
If  your  misdeed  be  paid  in  kind  ? — 

And  round  your  graves,  forever,  men 

Shall  blow  a  storm  of  slanderous  wind  ? 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  159 


LXXVIL 

IN  hazy  gold  the  hill-side  sleeps, 
The  distance  fades  within  the  mist, 

A  cloud  of  lucid  vapor  creeps 
Along  the  lake's  pale  amethyst. 

The  sun  is  but  a  blur  of  light, 
The  sky  in  ashy  gray  is  lost; 

But  all  the  forest-trees  are  bright, 
Brushed  by  the  pinions  of  the  frost. 

I  hear  the  clamor  of  the  crow, 
The  wild-ducks'  far,  discordant  cry, 

As  swiftly  out  of  sight  they  go, 
In  wedges  driving  through  the  sky. 

I  know  the  sunshine  of  this  hour, 
Warm  as  the  glow  of  early  May, 

Will  never  wake  the  dying  flower, 
Nor  breathe  a  spirit  through  decay. 


160  THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 

The  scarlet  leaves  are  doomed  to  fall, 
The  lake  shall  stiffen  at  a  breath, 

The  crow  shall  ring  his  dreary  call 
Above  December's  waste  of  death. 

And  so,  thou  bird  of  southern  flight, 
My  soul  is  yearning  for  thy  wings; 

I  dread  the  thoughts  that  come  to  light 
In  gazing  on  the  death  of  things. 

Pain  would  I  spread  an  airy  plume 

For  lands  whore  endless  summers  reign, 

And  lose  myself  in  tropic  bloom, 
And  never  think  of  death  again. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD,  161 


LXXYIlI. 

Now  thou  art  gone,  in  vain  to  me 

Is  any  stir  of  human  praise ; 
Such  trophies  as  I  won  for  thee, 

Lie  in  the  shadow  of  my  days. 

I  see,  with  melancholy  scorn, 

My  bay- wreath  falling,  leaf  by  leaf; 

It  lies  in  ashes,  soiled  and  torn, 

O'er-stained  with  tears  of  rage  and  grief. 

My  lyre  is  hushed:    the  breezes  wake 
Its  trembling  strings  to  better  cheer; 

My  listless  fingers  only  make 
A  murmur  in  death's  moody  ear. 

Partly  because  some  spirit  strong 

Urged  me  to  sing,  I  sang  awhile ; 
But  more  than  half  my  faulty  song 

Was  raised  to  draw  thy  partial  smile. 
I  14* 


162  THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 

Think  as  I  will,  I  cannot  bring 

My  mind  to  deem  tbee  far,  nor  strange 

This  voice  to  thee ;    and  so  I  sing, — 
Only  I  sing  to  suit  thy  change. 

To  thee  it  matters  naught,  to  me 
But  little,  what  my  ballads'  fate : 

They  shall  receive  a  smile  from  thee, 
Hereafter,  in  some  happier  state. 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD.  163 


LXXIX. 

jft 

GREAT  God,  I  cannot  bear  this  thing! 

Shall  his,  the  name  I  honored  so, 
Hang  out  for  every  wasp  to  sting, 

And  every  carrion-fly  to  blow  ? 

I  held  thee  sacred  here  on  earth ; 

Thy  precept  was  my  guiding  light; 
How  holy,  how  divine  thy  worth 

Shines  on  me  from  its  starry  height ! 

Dear  Soul,  within  thy  mortal  clay 
Was  nothing  selfish,  nothing  small ; 

Shalt  thou  become  the  helpless  prey 

Of  the  foul  worms  that  o'er  thee  crawl? 

Thy  name  was  carved  in  spotless  white; 

So  shone  the  record  on  thy  death  ; 
Shall  skulking  cowards  of  the  night 

Defile  it  with  their  slanderous  breath  ? 


164        THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Forbid  it,  God !      Thus  humbly  bowed, 
I  cry  for  justice  at  Thy  hand! 

Flash  downward  from  a  stooping  cloud, 
And  raze  the  liars  from  the  land ! 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD.  1G5 


LXXX. 

MY  soul  is  open  to  thy  eye, 
Thou  scest  me  simply  as  I  am; 

No  sin  can  hide,  or  shuffle  by 

Thy  piercing  vision  clear  and  calm. 

I  know  'tis  hard  for  mortal  clay 
To  bear,  unawed,  a  light  divine ; 

Nor  dare  I  confidently  lay 

Before  thee  this  frail  heart  of  mine. 

The  vileness  I,  myself,  perceive, 
Must  magnify  bene-ath  the  view 

That  sees  hell's  total  broadness  cleave 
A  gap  between  the  false  and  true. 

In  trembling  I  pursue  my  ways; 

But  surely  I  may  trust  that  lie. 
Who  so  enlarged  thy  mortal  gaze, 

Enlarged  thy  mortal  charity. 


166  THE   BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


Lxxxr. 

IF  this  sole  solace  of  my  grief, 
This  power  to  shape  a  dreary  lay, 

Were  silenced,  and  the  blest  relief 
Of  thought  in  music  reft  away ; 

I  would  have  burst  in  rhetoric  bold, 
Such  as  shook  Macedonia's  king, 

Or  poured  the  words,  from  lips  of  gold, 
At  which  false  Catiline  took  wing ; 

Or  traced  again,  with  fiery  pen, 

The  scorn  that  made  Salmasius  rave 

Before  the  mockery  of  men, 

And  jeered  him  to  his  wretched  grave. 

For,  lacking  utterance  to  my  woe, 

I  must  have  writhed  as  one  possessed, 

And  tossed  my  wild  arms  to  and  fro, 
And  rent  my  hair,  and  beat  my  breast. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  167 

Therefore  thank  God  that  in  mild  sonir 

O 

He  still  permits  my  pain  to  shroud ; 
And  when  I  thunder  o'er  the  throng, 
'Tis  only  from  a  golden  cloud ! 


168  THE   BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXXII. 

pity,  but  a  deeper  sense 
Of  something  graver,  stirs  to  birth, 
At  every  sight  of  grief  intense 
That  moves  this  melancholy  earth. 

The  vulgarest  and  meanest  show 
Of  sorrow  is  a  sacred  thing, 

That  fills  the  chambers  of  my  woe 
With  flutterings  of  an  angel's  wing. 

I  smile  no  more  at  pain  absurd : 
A  holy  presence  treads  the  ground 

Where'er  its  sobbing  voice  is  heard, 
And  j} — I  tremble  at  the  sound. 

No  soul  takes  flight,  but  wings  the  way 
On  which  my  own  Beloved  has  flown 

I  kneel,  and  with  the  mourners  pray: 
I  sec  all  sorrow  through  my  own. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  109 


LXXXIII. 

PERHAPS  I  make  my  grief  too  plain; 

Perhaps  the  sharpness  of  its  smart 
Strikes  too  directly  on  the  brain, 

And  fails  to  reach  the  deeper  heart. 

Some  things  are  clearer,  barely  caught 
In  shadowy  outlines,  that  suggest 

A  feeling  rather  than  a  thought, 
Quick  fancy  filling  up  the  rest. 

If  I  have  erred  through  stress  of  truth, 
And  made  my  picture's  tones  too  high, 

Know  that  this  vision  of  my  youth 
Cut  a  clear  line  against  the  sky; 


And  every  light  and  shade  I  saw 

Was  terribly  distinct  to  me : 
I  am  too  dull  to  err  by  law ; 

I  can  but  paint  the  thing  I  see. 
15 


170  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXXIY. 

WHAT  evidence  lies  round  about 

The  soul  in  its  eternal  jars 
With  Doubt  ?    For,  sometimes,  prying  Doubt 

Would  thrust  his  fingers  in  the  scars  ; 

Count  every  nail-hole,  touch  the  wound 
Made  in  the  body;   ere  he  heed 

The  words  of  witnesses  around, — 
"This  is  the  very  Lord  indeed!" 

Facts  keep  our  mounting  faith  in  awe : 
Linked  by  stern  sciences  they  sit, 

And  rather  lean  upon  the  law 

Than  on  the  hand  that  fashioned  it. 

Small  comfort  comes  from  gathered  weeds, 
Or  sums  of  years,  or  cloven  stones, 

Or  all  the  dry  material  creeds 

That  gather  round  the  mammoth's  bones. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.  171 

The  Soul,  not  blindly,  but  with  eyes 

That  search  through  darkness  for  the  day, 

Looks  round  the  circle  of  the  skies 
From  the  dim  windows  of  the  clay. 

She  sees  a  strange,  uncertain  light, — 
Perhaps  the  dawn  of  day  to  come; 

She  questions  Science,  on  her  height, 
But  the  proud  Sibyl's  mouth  is  dumb. 

She  can  but  loose  her  offspring,  Doubt, 
Upon  the  Soul,  to  mend  her  cause, 

And  haunt  the  spirit  in  and  out, 
And  prate  of  matter  and  its  laws. 

Let  Science,  and  her  sceptic  child, 

Walk  humbly  amongst  earthly  things; 

For  all  heaven's  whiteness  is  defiled 

When  beaten  with  her  dusty  wings.  % 

Give  Science  all  that  she  perceives, 
Nor  let  her  pride  by  that  be  blown ; 

For  what  the  dullest  soul  believes 

Is  more  of  worth  than  all  that  is  known. 


172  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 


LXXXY. 

THE  hopes,  on  which  our  spirits  live, 
Are  now  completed  truths  to  thee ; 

Thy  soul  no  longer  can  misgive 
The  shaping  of  the  last  decree. 

The  end  of  prophecy  is  thine, 

The  law  that  lies  in  seeming  chance, 

And  all  the  tangled  schemes  we  twine 
Are  simple  to  thy  single  glance. 

The  banded  stars  beneath  thee  spin; 

They  cannot  hide  their  secret  power; 
Thou  know'st  the  mystery  within 

The  blooming  of  the  earliest  flower. 

O 

From  sphere  to  sphere  thy  soul  ascends, 
Earth  fades  beneath  her  cleaving  wings, 

Till,  gathering  all  creation's  ends, 

She  broods  above  the  crown  of  things. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  173 

Poised  in  thy  grand  eternity, 

I  question  thee,  majestic  Soul ; 
Has  earth  no  more  regard  from  thee 

Than  as  an  atom  of  the  whole  ? 

Or  like  a  man  who,  days  and  nights, 
Has  travelled,  and  at  length  is  come 

Above  his  city's  myriad  lights, 
And  only  sees  the  light  of  home, 

Art  thou,  thus  gazing  from  afar? — 
And  when  thy  clear  perceptions  part 

The  mingled  systems  from  one  star, 
Comes  there  a  tumult  in  thy  heart? 


15* 


174  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXXVI. 

I  MEET  thee,  sometimes,  in  the  deep 
Of  midnight,  on  that  neutral  ground, 

'Twixt  life  and  death,  which  men  call  sleep 
We  meet,  and  part,  without  a  sound. 

God  will  not  grant  that,  even  in  dreams, 
Thy  voice  shall  gladden  me  again; 

So  thy  familiar  presence  seems 
Unreal,  a  phantom  of  my  pain. 

I  cannot  lose  the  heavy  thought 
That  thou'st  another  life  begun ; 

I  feel  our  lives  can  ne'er  be  brought 
Again  to  mingle  into  one. 

So  something  strange  invests  thy  mien, 
Dear  Mockery ;   and  I  seem  to  grow, 

Myself,  a  phantom  in  the  scene, — 
A  silent  portion  of  the  show. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE    DEAD.  175 

I  speak  not,  for  my  words  were  vain : 

I  see,  upon  thy  changeless  face, 
That  no  reply  Avould  come  again; 

I  touch  the  limit  of  the  grace. 

Oh  !    grace  unlimited  !      'Twere  vile, 
If  even  my  hungry  heart  asked  more 

Than  the  warm  sunshine  of  the  smile 
That  falls  upon  me  as  of  yore. 

I  know  that  look  of  love  and  trust, — 
That  musing  look  of  tender  pride ; 

'Tis  more  than  when  it  lit  thy  dust; 
'Tis  now  sublimed,  beatified. 

Yet  a  vague  fear  perplexes  me: 

Beneath  that  smile,  sincere  and  bland, 

Something  upon  thy  face  I  see, — • 
Something  I  cannot  understand. 


176  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXXVII. 

WHEN  my  dead  roses  bloom  once  more, 
And  these  dark  daisy-leaves  with  stars 

Of  white  are  powdered  o'er  and  o'er, 
And  through  yon  rusty  lattice-bars 

The  jessamine  thrusts  its  yellow  tips, 
And  the  bright  pansy  pranks  its  head, 

And  the  tall  lily's  pallid  lips 

Part  slowly,  and  from  green  to  red 

The  beaded  grapes  begin  to  turn, 

And  round  the  outskirts  of  the  lawn 

The  woodbine  blossoms  faintly  burn, — 
Ah !    then,  perhaps,  on  me  may  dawn 

The  morning  of  a  better  day; 

And  this  sad  heart  its  woful  hue 
May  reverently  put  away, 

And  deck  itself  in  something  new. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  H7 


LXXXVIIJ. 

WHEN  I  am  turned  to  mouldering  dust, 
And  all  my  ways  are  lost  in  night, 

When  through  me  crocuses  have  thrust 
Their  pointed  blades,  to  find  the  light ; 

And  caught  by  plant  and  grass  and  grain, 

My  elements  are  made  a  part 
Of  nature,  and,  through  sun  and  rain, 

Swings  in  a  flower  my  way  ward  heart ; 

Some  curious  mind  may  haply  ask, 

"Who  penned  this  scrap  of  olden  song? 

Paint  us  the  man  whose  woful  task 
Frowns  in  the  public  eye  so  long." 

I  answer,  truly  as  I  can ; 

I  hewed  the  wood,  the  water  drew ; 
I  toiled  along,  a  common  man, — 

A  man,  in  all  things,  like  to  you. 


178  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


LXXXIX. 

THEY  toll  me  thou  art  far  away, 
That  all  my  cries  to  thee  are  vain, 

That  I  but  rave  above  thy  clay; 

Thou  canst  not  hear  my  voice  complain ; 

That  heaven,  in  mercy  to  the  dead, 

This  cloudy  cope  o'er  earth  hath  thrown  ; 

Else  were  the  blessed  spirits  fed 
On  sorrows  keener  than  our  own. 

It  may  be  so.     I  cast  about 

For  faith ;   but  never  find  its  seeds 

In  men  who  dole  God's  mercies  out 
According  to  their  narrow  creeds. 

No  man  e'er  saw  a  spirit's  wing 
Outspread  before  his  mortal  eyes; 

But  is  man's  sense  the  only  thing 
On  which  his  wiser  soul  relies? 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       179 

Love's  vision  is  a  sense  divine: 

I  trust  its  truth,  when  I  avow 
That,  standing  face  to  face  with  mine, 

A  spirit  fronts  my  spirit  now. 


180  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 


xc. 


I  STOOD  amidst  an  angry  throng, 

To  plead,  to  question  and  to  hear; 
Some  scowled  with  predetermined  wrong, 

Some  lowered  with  greed,  some  paled  with  fear. 

My  purpose  grew  before  their  eyes; 

Scorn  filled  me,  as  with  potent  wine; 
I  felt  the  dead  man's  spirit  rise, 

And  stir  a  stronger  life  in  mine. 

Then  one  who  bore  our  common  shape, 
One  who  must  some  time  fill  a  tomb, 

Sprang  up,  and  tore  hell's  gates  agape, 
And  poured  on  earth  its  boding  gloom. 

With  flaming  face,  in  words  uncouth, 
A  thousand  frenzied  things  he  said; 

Blasphemed  the  simple  grace  of  truth, 
Outraged  the  living  and  the  dead. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  181 

About  mo,  in  the  listening  crowd, 

I  saw  full  many  smiling  stand, 
Whose  servile  necks  erewhile  had  bowed 

With  favors  at  the  dead  man's  hand. 

They  dared  not  speak  upon  his  part, 
Nor  make  truth's  sacred  cause  their  own; 

Only  one  brave  and  loyal  heart, 
Who  loved  him  for  himself  alone, 

Arose,  and  boldly  faced  the  storm, 

And  said  the  thing  which  he  thought  right: 
And  as  he  spoke,  methought,  his  form 

Grew  radiant  with  supernal  light ; 

And  heaven's  great  portal  open  swung, 

And  all  the  angels  softly  stole 
A  little  out,  to  hear  his  tongue 

Thus  pleading  for  their  fellow-soul: 

And  ever  since,  this  man  of  men 

Has  walked  before  me  glory-crowned ; 
A  virtue  flows  into  me  when 

I  touch  his  raiment  from  the  ground. 
10 


182  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 


XCI. 

I  TRUST  in  man.     Not  all  are  base; 

Not  all  are  pricked  by  grasping  self, 
To  show  the  hollow  double  face 

That  masks  the  shameful  love  of  pelf. 

Fierce  eyes  have  shone,  bold  tongues  have  hurled 

Defiance  at  my  sordid  foes ; 
And  here  and  there,  about  the  world, 

A  tear  has  dropped  upon  my  woes. 

And  chiefly  thou,  so.  wholly  pure 
In  thought,  in  act,  in  spotless  fame, 

Stern  scorner  of  the  golden  lure, 

Whose  soul  is  whiter  than  thy  name; — 

I  grasp  thee  with  a  brother's  hands; 

I  hold  thee  as  the  dearest  prize, 
Bequeathed  to  me  by  him  who  stands 

No  more  before  our  sorrowing  eyes. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       183 

And  thou,  dear  friend  of  later  date, 
Whose  wisdom  guides  the  subtle  pen 

That  oft  has  shaped  the  nation's  fate, 
And  dealt  out  destiny  to  men. — 

Strong  in  thy  cairn  self-sacrifice, 

That  questions  not  the  doubtful  end, 

Nor  counts  the  marketable  price 
Of  service  to  a  trusted  friend. 

You  two  are  strangers.      Pray  you,  be 
By  no  mere  custom  kept  apart : 

My  love  holds  high  festivity ; 

I  join  your  hands  within  my  heart. 


184  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XCIL 

WHERE  violets  and  daisies  spring, 
And  buttercups  nod  to  and  fro, 

And  the  young  grasses'  golden  ring 
Clasps  the  pine's  mossy  trunk  below; 

Where  the  wild  locust's  branches  drop 
Their  scented  snow  in  eddying  showers, 

And  the  magnolia's  leafless  top 

Stars  mid-day  with  its  silver  flowers ; 

Where  ivy  climbs,  and  myrtle  creeps, 
And  the  small  lily's  bells  are  hung, 

And  the  proud  laurel  darkly  keeps 
Its  wreaths  for  glories  yet  unsung; 

Where  the  broad  river  slowly  lags 
Round  grassy  points,  or  softly  draws 

Its  currents  through  the  tangled  flags, 
Chased  by  the  breeze's  fitful  flaws ; 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  185 

Where  the  wood-robin  rears  her  brood, 

And,  at  the  dewy  ends  of  day, 
Pours,  by  no  fear  of  man  subdued, 

The  tender  music  of  her  lay; — 

There  lies  a  grave;   and  thither  fly 
My  wildest  thoughts,  and  there  they  cease; 

And  all  I  ask  has  one  reply  : 

That  grave  but  whispers,  "Peace,  peace,  peace!" 


18G  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XCill. 

I  PITY  him  who  holds  his  grief 
No  higher  than  a  passing  sigh ; 

And  casts  about,  to  find  relief, 

With  nature's  tear-drops  in  his  eye. 

Who  seeks  the  world  to  drown  his  care, 
Who  leads  the  laughter  of  the  gay. 

And  lays  his  sacred  sorrow  bare, 
For  any  breath  to  blow  away. 

Who  dulls  his  heart,  and  drugs  his  brain  ; 

Is  pleased,  and  strives  in  turn  to  please ; 
That  he  may  blunt  the  edge  of  pain, 

And  live  again  in  selfish  ease. 

The  grief  that  rent  my  breast  has  shown 

The  wonder  of  my  heart  to  me ; 

_• 
And,  mirrored  clearly  in  my  own, 

The  great  heart  of  humanity. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  187 

Supremest  wonder  of  the  whole! 

O  heart  divine!   whose  narrow  space 
Reflects  before  the  gazing  soul 

Heaven's  vastness,  and  God's  vaster  grace  ! 


188  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XCIV. 

IN  robes  of  woe,  before  me  stood 

A  silent  figure.  Towards  the  ground, 

His  features,  muffled  in  his  hood, 

Were  bowed  with  sorrow  most  profound. 

I  questioned  him ;    but  no  reply 

Was  mine,  save  what  might  be  expressed 
By  the  long  quaver  of  a  sigh, 

Or  hands  that  beat  his  troubled  breast. 

I  loosed  his  robe,  with  meaning  kind, 
I  drew  the  garment  from  its  place ; 

His  splendor  struck  my  senses  blind ; 
An  angel  shone  before  my  face! 

His  smile  said  more  than  many  words: 
He  tarried  not ;    he  gazed  on  high ; 

His  pinions  flashed,  like  brandished  swords, 
And  clove  amain  the  cloudless  sky. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  189 

I  followed  him  with  longing  view; 

He  did  not  vanish  from  my  sight; 
His  form  diffused  itself,  and  grew 

To  be  a  portion  of  the  light. 


190  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD, 


XCY. 

THE  day  arose  in  dismal  black, 

In  dismal  black  crept  out  the  morn  ; 

Noon  passed  unheeded ;   and  the  rack 
Grew  darker,  thicker,  more  forlorn, 

As  down,  behind  yon  wooded  ledge, 
The  unseen  sun  supinely  rolled ; 

Nor  did  he  tinge  the  lowest  edge 
Of  evening  with  his  fiery  gold. 

Deep  and  more  deep  the  darkness  grew, 
As  the  weird  midnight  hour  drew  nigh  ; 

Until,  from  out  the  west,  there  flew 
A  little  breeze,  and  swept  the  sky. 

And  all  the  stars  together  shone; 

And,  here  and  there,  a  planet  glowed ; 
And  the  moon's  waned  and  broken  zone 

Made  silver  of  a  ragged  cloud. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       191 

Then  praised  I  Him  who  dimmed  the  day, 
And  made  the  evening's  glory  dull, 

Only  to  wipe  the  stain  away, 
And  make  the  night  more  beautiful. 


102  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


XCVI. 

CAN  time,  that  makes  the  memory 

A  fading  record,  faint  and  pale, 
So  gain  the  mastery  over  me 

That  what  is  written  here  shall  fail? 

And  like  a  vain  and  faithless  girl, 
Who  reads  the  letters  of  her  youth, 

My  brow  shall  knit,  my  lip  shall  curl 

O'er  that  which  once  was  meant  for  truth? 

And  other  love,  and  other  grief, 

New  scenes,  new  faces,  and  new  deeds, 

Shall  pour  a  balsam  of  relief 

In  every  wound  that  aches  and  bleeds? 

It  may  be  that  a  calmer  day — 

God  grant  it! — may  be  given  to  me; 

But  where  the  steel  has  rent  its  way, 
There,  too,  the  lasting  scar  will  be. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  193 


XCVII. 

LET  me  not  scorn  my  better  self, 
And  drag  my  nobler  nature  down 

To  that  degrading  scale  of  pelf 

That  measures  out  the  red-faced  clown, 

Who,  in  his  coarse,  indecent  way, 

Would  chaffer  for  a  good  man's  fame ; 

And  give  his  stock  of  lies  in  pay, 
And  shut  for  gold  his  mouth  of  shame. 

Bought  peace,  at  any  price,  is  dear ; 

Peace,  with  such  knaves,  can  only  stand 
When  it  has  wrung  from  beaten  fear 

Its  title  with  the  naked  brand. 

I  sound  a  challenge  to  my  foes ; 

I  plunge  into  the  doubtful  fight; 
To  right  and  left  I  deal  my  blows: 

I  ask  no  aid,  no  greater  might 
n  17 


194  THE  BOOK   OF    THE  DEAD. 

Than  that  which  falls  from  God  above; 

Or  from  the  Soul  who  silent  stands, 
Gazing  on  me  with  patient  love, 

Stretching  o'er  me  his  blessing  hands. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  195 


XCVIII. 

IT  seems  that  even  rogues  like  these 
Can  find  worse  rogues  to  be  their  tools,- 

Fellows  who  lie  for  paltry  fees, 
Shufflers  of  precedents  and  rules. 

Men  who  would  take  a  cause  from  hell, 
And  nostril-deep  through  foulness  wade, 

Serving  the  Devil  quite  as  well 
As  God,  if  they  were  duly  paid. 

With  any  trade  I  quarrel  not: 

Corruption  strikes  the  tree  in  bloom; 

And  some  must  clear  away  the  rot, — 
Mere  scavengers  by  nature's  doom. 


Well,  let  them  go !  One,  only  one, 
At  this  eternal  bar  shall  stand, 

Who  fawned  before  me  in  the  sun, 
And  in  the  darkness  tore  my  hand. 


196  THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Within  thy  wretched  memory 

I  cause  the  spectral  past  to  tread ; 

Each  step  is  marked  by  grace  to  thee, 
Accorded  by  the  kindly  dead. 

Was  it  for  thee,  of  all  men  born, 

To  turn,  before  the  grass  had  sprung 

Upon  his  grave,  and  blend  thy  scorn 
In  chorus  with  each  lying  tongue? 

Is  this  a  benefactor's  due  ? 

Does  scorn  become  a  thing  like  thee, 
Bred  'twixt  the  pot-house  and  the  stew, 

To  each  its  worst  deformity? 

I  marvel  at  thy  ingrate  heart, 

Thy  falsehood  and  thy  purblind  sense; 

But  palsied  falls  my  rhyming  art 
Before  thy  bare-browed  impudence! 


THE  BOOK   OF    THE   DEAD.  197 


XCIX. 

O  MAN  of  serviceable  mind, 

Whose  memory  can  only  strain 

Back  to  the  things  wherein  you  find 
A  present  hope  of  selfish  gain ! — 

How  luminous,  how  crammed  with  acts, 
Are  all  your  recollections  then ! 

How  glibly  slide  the  lying  facts 

From  rattling  tongue  and  flowing  pen ! 

But  where  your  history  seems  to  frown, 
And  shake  a  finger  at  your  purse, 

How  soon  your  eloquence  is  blown, 
And  stricken  with  a  silent  curse! 

Strange  but  convenient  intellect ! 

That  follows  but  the  golden  track; 
I'll  test  its  merit  and  defect; 

I'll  question  it  upon  the  rack. 


198       THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Do  you  forget  the  youth  whose  look 
Was  humbled  before  fortune's  ill, 

Who  bent  above  a  musty  book, 

And  drove  with  sighs  a  hireling  quill? 

Do  you  forget  who,  pace  by  pace, 
Advanced  him  onward  to  his  good, 

Against  their  wills  who  knew  him  base, 
Until  a  man  with  men  he  stood? 

Who  nursed  his  fortune  till  it  grew; 

Whose  counsel  added  gain  to  gain ; 
Ever  beside  him,  strong  and  true, 

With  hand  and  heart  and  planning  brain? 

The  man  who  raised  you  from  the  dirt, 
By  the  mere  greatness  of  his  mind, 

Failed  but  in  this,  and  felt  the  hurt, — 
He  made  you  not  what  he  designed. 

He  meant  to  make  you  something  more 
Than  nature  willed, — wise,  true  and  bold  ;- 

The  vileness  of  your  soul  ran  o'er, 
And  spoiled  his  purpose  in  the  mould. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  199 

So  Heaven,  in  primal  Adam's  birth, 

Miscarried.      The  created  still 
Spurns  the  creator;   and  your  earth 

Was  not  exempt  from  mortal  ill. 

It  is  not  strange  that  you  forget; 

You  are  most  mortal ;   and  to  ask 
For  gratitude  or  vain  regret, 

Were  to  assume  God's  future  task. 

Or  have  you  with  those  memories, 

So  aptly  lost,  forgotten,  too, 
The  Dead  who  sleeps  but  to  arise, 

And  hold  a  reckoning  with  you  ? 


200  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 


c. 


THE  primrose  in  the  valley  blooms, 
The  snowdrop  swings  its  silent  bells, 

The  willow  droops  its  tangled  plumes, 
The  maple's  tufted  blossom  swells ; 

Long  sweeps  of  tender  grass  ascend 

The  hill-side,  towards  the  melting  snows, 

And  where  the  climbing  patches  end, 
Full-flowered,  the  low  arbutus  blows. 

A  duller  sense  than  mine  should  feel 
The  stir  in  nature's  warming  soul  ; 

It  makes  the  shouting  bluebirds  reel, 
And  bursts  the  violet's  twisted  scroll. 

O  sullen  darkness  of  the  heart ! 

O  fruitless  torpor  of  the  brain  ! 
When  will  your  clouds  and  frosts  depart? — 
•  When  shall  I  come  to  life  a 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       201 


CI. 


THE  yearly  miracle  of  Spring, 

Of  budding  tree  and  blooming  flower, 

Which  nature's  feathered  laureates  sing 
In  my  cold  ear,  from  hour  to  hour, 

Spreads  all  its  wonders  round  my  feet; 

And  every  wakeful  sense  is  fed 
On  thoughts  that,  o'er  and  o'er,  repeat, 

"The  Eesurrection  of  the  Dead!" 

If  these  half  vital  things  have  force 

To  break  the  spell  which  Winter  weaves, 

To  wake,  and  clothe  the  wrinkled  corse 
In  the  full  life  of  shining  leaves ; — 

Shall  I  sit  down  in  vague  despair, 
And  marvel  if  the  nobler  soul, 

We  laid  in  earth,  shall  ever  dare 
To  wake  to  life,  and  backward  roll 


202  THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD. 

The  scaling  stone,  and,  striding  out, 
Claim  its  eternity,  and  head 

Creation  once  again,  and  shout, 
"The  Eesurrection  of  the  Dead"? 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  203 


GIL 

WE  poets  bang  upon  the  wheel 

Of  Time's  advancement ;  do  our  most 

To  hide  his  inroads,  and  reveal 

The  splendors  which  the  world  has  lost. 

Euins  with  ivy-leaves  we  twine, 

"We  flower  the  path  of  crippled  Use, 

And,  sometimes,  hold  as  half  divine 
What  others  count  as  old  abuse. 

We  see  regality  in  kings, 

And  something  like  a  sacred  power 
In  sceptred  hands  and  jewelled  rings: 

We  will  not  trust  the  present  hour. 

So  Science  and  her  sneering  tribe 
A  cry  of  fierce  derision  raise ; 

And  ever  have  a  taunt  or  gibe 

To  fling  against  our  harmless  ways. 


204  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

We  but  lament.      We  cannot  lay 
A  feather  to  impede  their  force ; 

Creation  is  become  their  prey; 

They  claw  and  rend  her  soulless  corse. 

We  but  lament.      We  miss  God's  hand 
Upon  our  radiant  mother's  brow. 

Tearful,  and  full  of  fear,  we  stand  ; 
Tearful,  and  full  of  fear,  we  bow. 

Science  and  Avarice,  arm  in  arm, 

Stride  proudly  through  our  abject  time; 

And  in  their  footsteps,  wrangling,  swarm 
Their  own  begotten  broods  of  crime. 

We  cannot  flatter.      Since  our  seed 
First  flowered  within  the  Chian  isle, 

No  poet's  song  was  raised  to  feed 
The  famished  passions  of  the  vile. 

Hopeless  but  endless  war  we  urge 
Wherever  guilt  uplifts  its  face: — 

Witness,  in  my  right  hand,  this  scourge, 
Red  with  the  blood-drops  of  the  base  ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  205 


cm. 

GLORY  to  God !     This  blessed  hour, 
The  tender  touches  of  the  day, 

Drew  me,  by  some  mysterious  power, 
A  little  from  myself  away. 

Great  Nature  lay  with  open  breast, 
And  palms  outspread,  beneath  the  sun, 

And  dreamed  of  all  the  flowers,  that  drest 
Her  olden  summers,  one  by  one. 

Her  dream  possessed  my  drowsing  brain, 
Young  Eden  opened  on  my  view ; 

I  saw  its  sunshine  and  its  rain 
Pour  lightly  on  the  sinless  Two. 

They  listened  to  the  pastoral  bleat ; 

The  lion  fawned  before  their  tread; 
With  trusting  eyes  they  set  their  feet 

Upon  the  harmless  serpent's  head. 

18 


206       THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

One  spirit  moved  all  earthly  things; 

Communion  with  the  great  and  small, 
The  tree  that  grows,  the  bird  that  sings, 

Was  theirs;   they  understood  them  all. 

How  long  I  dreamed  I  cannot  say: 

Upon  her  poles  the  great  earth  wheeled, 

And  cast  her  mortal  age  away 

In  what  her  visioned  youth  revealed. 

I  woke  to  a  discordant  din, 

A  sting  that  almost  took  my  breath  : 

The  din  was  as  the  howl  of  sin, — 
The  sting  was  as  the  sting  of  death ! 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  207 


CIY. 

I,  SIGHING  o'er  the  happy  past, 

Yet  murmur  for  the  time  to  come; 

And,  like  a  shipwrecked  voyager,  cast 
On  land,  above  the  flying  foam, 

Look,  from  my  shelter,  o'er  the  sea, 
To  catch  the  glimmer  of  a  sail  ; 

And  think  my  solitude  to  be 

Worse  than  their  lot  who,  in  the  gale, 

Went  down  amidst  the  strangling  wave  ;- 
Quick  exit  from  the  endless  strife 

That  I  reluctantly  must  brave, 
To  keep  my  body's  wretched  life. 

I  stand  upon  a  barren  shoal : 

The  life  that  was  seems  passing  fair: 

I  stretch  the  vision  of  my  soul, 
And  fill  the  azure  depths  of  air 


208  THE  BOOK   OF   THE  DEAD. 

With  flashing  crowns,  and  snowy  wings, 
And  saints,  rejoicing  as  they  meet, 

And  the  seraphic  choir  that  sings 
Forever  at  God's  quiet  feet. 


THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD.       209 


CV. 

IF  any  good  may  come  to  me 

From  the  cruel  thorns  o'er  which  I  tread, — 
Soft  touches  of  humility, 

That  bow  to  earth  my  chastened  head ; 

I  shall  not  thank  the  evil  things, 

That  served  as  Heaven's  dumb  instruments; 
Nor  give  their  many  wholesome  stings 

The  merit  due  to  good  intents. 

Out  of  the  vileness  of  their  hearts, 

They  hissed  and  stung:  God's  mercy  stood 

Between  us,  and  allayed  the  smarts, 
And  from  their  evil  wrought  my  good. 


18* 


210  THE  BOOK  OF    THE   DEAD. 


CVI. 

I  KNOW  that  I  shall  never  cease, 

Dear  Soul,  to  walk  one  path  with  thee; 

Though  on  my  head  the  years  increase, 
Thy  image  lives  in  all  I  see. 

Thou  risest  with  the  vernal  bud, 

Thy  footstep  shakes  the  summer  grain, 

Thy  lips  with  autumn's  fruity  blood 
Are  wet,  and  through  the  wintry  rain, 

And  rigid  ice,  and  driving  snow, 
Thy  ghost  stands  solemnly  apart, 

With  thoughtful  eyes  that  sternly  glow 
Their  light  upon  my  inmost  heart. 

I  murmur  not.      I  would  not  fly, 
Dear,  dreadful  vision  of  my  brain, 

Thy  awful  love  and  ruling  ejre 

To  save  one  twinge  of  selfish  pain. 


THE  BOOK  OF   THE  DEAD.  211 

It  strengthens  me,  thus  living  half 
Within  the  brightness  of  thy  soul, 

To  see  the  age's  tear  or  laugh, 
Yet  live  supreme  above  the  whole. 

No  change  of  fickle  time  can  be, 

By  which  the  race  is  saved  or  wrecked, 

That  I  shall  not  desire  to  see 
Swept  over  by  thy  intellect; 

And  all  its  secrets  clearly  shown 

Before  thy  wide  supernal  eyes, 
That  I  may  catch  some  truth  unknown, 

And  grow,  beneath  thy  wisdom,  wise. 

I  hold  my  lot  a  higher  one, 

If  not  a  happier,  than  to  stand 
The  blazing  point  in  fortune's  sun, 

The  mortal  idol  of  the  land* 

For  though  'tis  joyless,  thus  unfit, 
To  bide  so  near  heaven's  open  gate, 

Such  chance  as  mine  had  never  lit 
The  darkness  of  our  earthly  slate, 


212       THE  BOOK  OF  THE  DEAD. 

Hadst  thou  not  drawn  me  by  thy  love 
Half  from  this  chrysalis  of  clay, 

And  taught  my  feeble  wings  to  move, — 
Wings  pinioned  still,  and  scant  of  play. 

Following  thy  will,  I  onward  bear, 

Through  aid  above  my  strength  or  worth, 

With  wings  that  cleave  the  heavenly  air, 
With  feet  that  drag  the  common  earth. 


THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD.  213 


CVI1. 

WITH  pious  hands  I  close  thy  tomb, 
Whose  dreadful  lids  have  stood  ajar, 

As  the  great  angel's  book  of  doom, 
Throughout  this  long  and  weary  war. 

Sleep  now  in  peace!      Against  the  day 
Thy  Janus'-gate  no  longer  yawns; 

Sleep,  while  the  earth  that  bears  thy  clay 
Speeds  onward  through  a  myriad  dawns! 

Sleep,  in  the  darkness  so  beloved 
By  those  who  lie  beyond  our  sight! 

In  decent  slumber,  and  unmoved, 

Pass  thou  thy  long,  untroubled  night ! 

While  round  thy  grave  the  myrtle  creeps, 
The  pine-tree  drones  its  dirge  on  high, 

The  blue-eyed  violet  yearly  weeps, 
And  o'er  thee  bends  the  placid  sky. 


214  THE  BOOK  OF    THE  DEAD. 

And  I,  and  she  who  loves  me  most, 

And  those  who  proudly  bear  thy  name, 

Shall  reverence  thy  sacred  ghost, 

And  stand  as  champions  for  thy  fame. 

The  curs  that  bayed  at  thee  are  dumb, 
The  liars  strangled  with  their  lies; 

A  thousand  honest  voices  hum 
Thy  praise,  and  not  a  foe  replies. 

No  sound  shall  come  to  vex  thy  ear : 
Thy  small  domain  of  flowery  sod 

Is  hallowed.      Sleep,  without  a  fear, 
And  wake  but  at  the  voice  of  God! 


THE    END. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 

LOAN  DEPT. 

This  book  is  due  on  the  last  date  stamped  below,  or 

on  the  date  to  which  renewed. 
Renewed  books  are  subject  to  immediate  recall. 


FEB23196732 

nnrv 

^~~ 

LOAN  DEPT 


JuV 


61973  3 


DEC    91978 


CIR.  DEC  1 1  1978 


MAY  1  2  198? 


JUH06 


JUN    4  1968  6  7 

RECEIVE; 


LD  21A-60m-7,'66 
(G4427slO)476B 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


. 

--:• 


